Absorbing an Aliyah

Twelve years ago, David Ben-Gurion, who was then Israel's Premier, advised his countrymen to prepare for what would "possibly be the greatest event in our history." He was referring to the "great day" when the gates of Israel would be opened to accept masses of Soviet Jews. Ben-Gurion's prophecy is now coming true: the gates are indeed swinging wide for the largest wave of Russian Jews to leave their homeland since the days of the czarist pogroms. Last year 15,000 arrived, against only 1,000 in 1970; this year, 45,000 are expected. If the flow continues at this pace--something that depends on the mercurial emigration policies of Soviet authorities--500,000 Russian Jews will have landed in Israel by the end of the '70s.

Under the Law of Return, Israel offers citizenship and a new homeland to any Jew. Thus there is no question that the vast hordes of those leaving the Soviet Union will all be accepted. But the immigration for which Israelis and Jews elsewhere have so passionately agitated is beginning to pose serious problems for Israel. Taking care of the immigrants has put an almost impossible burden on Israel's already strained economic resources. This year the government has allotted $650 million to provide for newcomers; even the sacrosanct defense budget had to be slashed to help find the money. U.S. bond holders, Israel's biggest outside benefactors, have been asked for a record $450 million this year. Last week both Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and Finance Minister Pinhas Sapir were in the U.S. to do some fundraising.

The new money is needed to transport the immigrants to Israel by air from Vienna (see box), teach them He brew, and retrain specialists whose Russian skills--dentistry and law, for instance--are inadequate by Israeli standards. New housing must also be provided, since Israel is chronically short of living space.

Crash spending, however, can do little to mitigate the psychological strains created by this latest ally ah (immigration wave). "These Russians," says Minister of Immigrant Absorption Nathan Peled, who came to Israel from Russia 39 years ago, "come with high potential. But before they realize it, they must come to terms with a new kind of society that has its rich and poor, primitive and highly cultured, socialist and capitalist, religious and secular." Most of the immigrants, for instance, are totally baffled by such routine fiscal necessities as checking accounts and bank loans. Accustomed to scarcity, they are suspicious of well-stocked supermarkets. Most of the Russians are obviously familiar with shortwave broadcasts by Israel's government radio; they complain that "Kol [meaning voice of] Israel" misled them by not mentioning crime in the Promised Land or the fact that not all Israelis are devoutly religious. A handful, disenchanted by it all. returned to Russia.

The decision to leave Russia was traumatic for many emigrants. No other dissidents are allowed to leave the Soviet Union, and Russians consider Jewish departures an act of betrayal; thus anti-Semitism intensifies after they decide to go. An oil engineer recalls being hauled before a meeting of 300 fellow workers. "You should be sent to Siberia, not Israel," one of them told him angrily. As a result they tend to clannishness when they reach Israel. About 15% decline government offers to locate them and move in with relatives instead. "They usually find," says an absorption ministry worker, "that after the first five days the picnic is over and the relatives want them out. Then they come back to us."

Overly Pampered. Many Israelis, both natives and absorbed, resent the reclusive habits of the newcomers from Russia and the attention paid to them by the government. One widespread complaint is that they are overly pampered. Watching an El Al 747 jet arrive from Vienna recently with 326 immigrants aboard, a waitress at Lod Airport's restaurant summed up the mood. "These Russians should only be well and find their place in Israel," she said. "But why we have to give them such big apartments and spoil them the way we do. I don't know. When I came with my husband from Poland, we got nothing. We lived in a tent." University students protest that immigrants receive priority in admissions, on-campus jobs and housing over Israelis returning to school after compulsory military service.

The bitterest complaints come from Israel's 1,500,000 Sephardic (Oriental) Jews, many of them villagers from Africa, Asia and Arab nations, who constitute a minority in Israel. At least 20% of its population exist at or below poverty level; most of these are Sephardic Jews. "If the government spends $35,000 to absorb a Russian family," asks David Sitton, leader of Israel's Sephardic community, "why does it not spend the same amount to help our people who were immigrants themselves 20 years ago and never got what the Russians are getting?" Adds Charley Biton, Moroccan-born leader of a Sephardic youth gang that has consciously modeled itself on America's Black Panthers, "I don't care if Russian Jews come, but I don't want it at the expense of us Orientals."

Taking account of Sephardic resentment, the government, from the tight new budget adopted last month by the Cabinet, is also allocating funds to fight poverty. A total of $250 million over the next five years will be used to improve or build housing for 47,000 families living below the poverty line; other funds will be spent on day-care centers and job-training for school dropouts like Charley Biton. But if a fiscal crunch comes, priorities are clear. "Defense and immigration must come first," Golda Meir has told the nation.

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