Israel: Not Just a Travel Agent

Not Just a Travel Agent

Since January, more than 4,700 Jews have left the Soviet Union carrying Israeli visas. But only 18.7% of them have actually ended up in the Jewish state. Israeli officials, eager to promote the Zionist ideal and increase their stagnating Jewish population, have been agonizing over this "dropout" problem for years, and last week they took drastic action to resolve it. The Israeli Cabinet voted 16 to 2 to force Jewish emigres to leave the Soviet Union by way of Bucharest, where officials have agreed to compel them to proceed directly to Israel and nowhere else. Soviet Jews currently emigrate by way...

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