Emigration of Soviet Jews Climbs to Highest Total in Nearly 9 Years

Emigration of Soviet Jews rose sharply in October to the highest monthly total in nearly nine years, the Intergovernmental Commission for Migration reported Wednesday.

The agency said that 2,473 Soviet Jews arrived at its reception center in Vienna in October, the most since 3,050 emigres registered in March, 1980.

A spokeswoman said that 78 of the October arrivals headed for Israel and that the rest went to Italy pending resettlement in the United States and other countries.

“(Soviet President Mikhail S.) Gorbachev is now clearly honoring his promise to make Jewish emigration easier,” one commission official said. “We have no reason to think that there will be any sudden reversal of the much more liberal Jewish emigration policy, which has clearly been introduced.”

Gorbachev pledged to ease restrictions on Jewish emigration within two years of his rise to power in March, 1985, and departures from the Soviet Union have risen steadily since the end of 1986.

Estimates of the number of Jews who want to leave range from 100,000 to 1 million. Officials of various Jewish assistance agencies place the figure at about 450,000.

The number of arrivals of Jews in the West last month brought the total for 1988 to 14,288. A continuation of the pace for the rest of the year would approach the 1980 total of 21,470.

Only 943 Soviet Jews left the homeland in 1986.