New slump in 2004 immigration to Israel

New slump in 2004 immigration to Israel

AFP
Date: Fri Dec 3

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Immigration to Israel further slumped in 2004, as a rise in Jews coming from Western countries failed to compensate for plummeting numbers of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

"Israel is set to absorb some 22,000 immigrants this year," compared with around 25,000 in 2003, Jewish Agency spokesman Yarden Vatikai told AFP on Friday.

The number of immigrants from the former Soviet Union went down from 12,500 to 10,000 during the same period and represents half of those Jews and descendants of Jews who immigrated to Germany.

The Jewish Agency, the semi-government agency that promotes Jewish immigration, criticized Germany's generous immigration policy, which led to a decrease in the number of Jews from the former Soviet Union settling in Israel.

It deemed that Germany should not consider them as refugees.

Sixty percent of immigrants from the former Soviet Union are not viewed as Jews by Israel's rabbinic authorities, but still enjoy the Jewish state's law of return that automatically grants them the Israeli citizenship as Jews or descendants of Jews.

The number of French and US Jews moving to Israel in 2004 went up 20 percent but remained quite modest with 2,400 coming from France and 2,800 from the United States.

In 2002, 34,831 people immigrated to Israel, compared with 44,000 in 2001 and 60,000 in 2000 -- numbers that were already in stark contrast with the massive wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Jewish immigration in 2004 is five times lower than that forecast by Israel's Prime Minster Ariel Sharon for the next ten years.

Since 1948 when the Jewish state was created, more than three million Jewish immigrants have settled in Israel.

Source

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