Uri Gordon; Supervised Immigration to Israel

Uri Gordon, 65, the charismatic Jewish Agency official who oversaw the mass immigration of Ethiopian and Soviet Jews to Israel in the 1980s and 1990s. Born in Tel Aviv in 1935, Gordon was disabled by polio at an early age. A member of the Labor Party, he rose to prominence in the Jewish Agency, a quasi-governmental body that supervises immigration, in the 1970s, when he won a following during a stint as emissary to the United States. He energetically encouraged young American Jews to immigrate to Israel, saying that the country needed their education and skills to go forward--and arguing that as Jews there was nowhere in the world they would feel more comfortable. He founded a U.S. youth movement, Telem, that had as its only tenet the commitment to move to Israel. Hundreds joined and went in Israel as a result. Gordon supervised immigration for the agency, taking part in the planning of dramatic airlifts of tens of thousands Ethiopian Jews in 1984 and in 1991, and planning for the absorption of hundreds of thousands of Jews who arrived after the collapse of the Soviet Union. On Sunday in Jerusalem, according to the Jewish Agency. The cause of death was not announced.