3,700 Soviet Jews Living in Israel’s Occupied Territories

The Israeli government has portrayed the influx of Soviet Jews to the occupied lands as minuscule, but a survey completed today estimated that more than 3,700 Soviet Jews are living on land seized from Jordan in 1967.

The survey total, which encompasses annexed areas of Jerusalem that are excluded by the government, shows the magnitude of the immigration to occupied zones is far short of the mass influx feared by the Arabs.

It constitutes only a small percentage of the 51,700 Jews who have arrived since the Soviet Union liberalized its exit policies in the spring of 1989.

But the issue of settling Soviet Jews on war-won land has become critical to the future flow of immigrants, projected to reach 20,000 a month later this year.