The World - News from March 27, 1989

Israel has decided to stop making grants of about $1,000 to Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate to Israel because many end up in other countries, a government official said. The grants previously were paid to Soviet Jews in Moscow or Vienna to help them emigrate, he said. Israel is frustrated that an overwhelming majority of Soviet Jews given Israeli visas move instead to the United States. In 1988, only 1,428 of 20,082 Jews who left the Soviet Union ended up in Israel. The government has been trying to set up flights that will pass through Romania rather than Austria to prevent emigres from changing destinations in Vienna.