Jewish Emigration Patterns Confound The Planners

Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza are (along with the ultimate disposition of Jerusalem) the major stumbling block to an Israeli-Palestinian peace that could give the entire Middle East its first breathing spell since the end of World War II. The patterns of Jewish emigration. Therefore, are a matter of international rather than purely sectarian interest.

For starters, in the United States, where nearly half the world's Jews now live, intermarriage with non-Jews has reached 52 percent, according to staff writer Na'ama Batya Lewin, writing in the Washington Jewish Week. A very small percentage of the children of such marriages are raised as Jews.

The fear of intermarriage often is cited as a major reason for emigration of American and Canadian Jews to Israel. Although such emigration climbed by nearly 40 percent from 1992, it still was a miniscule 3,957 in 1993. At present, there are said to be some 130,000 American Jews living in Israel, comprising about 3 percent of the Jewish population there.

Some of the most liberal and tolerant Israeli citizens are of American origin. Ironically, so are some of the most radical and bigoted among the Jewish settlers in occupied areas. Fifteen percent of those Jewish settlers are American.

"Israel has become a dumping ground for some of the dreck (trash) of American Jewry, " according to Allon Gal, professor of American Jewish history at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva. "They came in the 1980s in an atmosphere created by the Likud Party, which gave them the feeling that people could live here like the white man in America 200 years ago with the Indians. Except instead of Indians they are Palestinians. "

Of the North American Jewish emigrants to Israel, nearly half were from the New York area. By contrast, some 500,000 Israelis live or work in the United States, 200,000 of them, in New York, according to staff writer Daniel Schiffin of The Jewish Week of Queens, New York.

Many estimates place the number of Israeli Jews living in the U.S. at 600,000 or more. The reason for the discrepancy is that Israel counts its former Jewish residents as part of its population, so long as they return for a visit at least once every four years. Thus the over count of Israeli Jewish citizens may be between 500,000 and one million, including most of those now residing permanently in the United States.

Most Canadian Jewish emigrants to Israel last year came from Toronto (144), where 45 percent of Canada's 356,315 Jews live, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Jewish immigration into Canada between 1981 and 1991 numbered 30,000, contributing to the increase in Jewish residents of English speaking Toronto, and somewhat reducing a net outflow of Jews from French-speaking Montreal.

Of far greater interest to Israelis, and Israel-watchers in the Middle East, are emigration trends among the remaining 1.4 million Jews in the former Soviet Union. At present, Jews in Russia have drastically slowed their departures, although many obtain but do not use immigration visas for Israel. Most of the immigrants to Israel at present are from former republics of the Soviet Union, like Kazakhstan, where Jews, along with all persons for whom Russian is a first language, feel less secure than in Russia itself.

Fund-raisers for the United Jewish Appeal's Operation Exodus, which raises money to help Jewish emigrants, maintain that 370,000 Jews emigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1989 and 1990. Emigration from the same territories to Israel now has slowed to an average of 70,000 per year, UJA officials say, giving Israel a total of 500,000 from the former Soviet Union.

Of the estimated 1.4 million Jews remaining there, most of those considering emigration show a preference for the U.S. or Canada. In fact, most of those who show any inclination to leave already have departed. Of self-defined Jews remaining in the former Soviet Union, more are over 50 years of age than under 50, according to Mikhail Chlenov, president of the Federation of Jewish Organizations and Communities in Russia.

As for the only other recent large immigration into Israel, the major influx of 14,000 Ethiopian Falasha Jews occurred in 1991. There now are few Jews remaining in Ethiopia.