COMMENT 1,c New Arrivals European crafted cribs and furniture plus unique bedding and accessories provide the ideal background for that Very Important Baby. Bellini also offers youth furniture that grows with your child. 1875 S. WOODWARD • BIRMINGHAM 48011 1 Block North of 14 Mile . 644-0525 ♦ ♦ STRICKLY SWIFT 20% OFF NEW IN-STOCK PRE-TEEN DRESSY DRESSES Open To The Public Monday-Friday Call For Times Available 669-1440 2065 W. Maple Rd., Ste. 306 Walled Lake, MI Ann Strickstein Pam Swift Mother's Day Special 10% Below Builder's Cost On All Closet Systems (This Offer Extended Through May 31) Custom Closets by Space Organization For Your • Manufacturers Of Custom Closet Organizers Since 1983 • Professional Quality And Service • Our Prices Are Guaranteed to Be The Best (against similar quality materials) 20 FRIDAY, MAY 10, 1991 FREE In Home Estimate Call Now 313-752-6690 No More Room For Soviet Immigrants? NECHEMIA MEYERS Special to The Jewish News ust a few months ago, Prosper Azran, the mayor of Kiryat Shmoneh, was pleading with the government to send more Soviet immigrants to his Upper Galilee develop- ment town. Now he is pleading with the govern- ment to stop sending them altogether. This dramatic turnabout reflects the situation in many other places, where "sorry, full up" signs are also being hung out. Kiryat Shmoneh had good reason to ask for immigrants in the first place. Being close to the Lebanese border and, until recently, the target of terrorist rocket attacks, it had great difficulty attrac- ting new residents or even holding on to its own youth. So everyone was pleased when the Soviets started coming, particularly since, at first, housing and jobs were readily available. Now both are in short supply and the town, which already has 1,800 Soviet immigrants, is loath to take in more. Mayor Azran, never a man to mince words, charges that one body (the Jewish Agen- cy) feels that all it has to do is to put the Soviets on a plane, and another body (the Absorption Ministry) feels that its task is limited to handing them a check when they get off the plane. The local authorities are ex- pected to solve all the other problems, and without ade- quate resources, Mr. Azran . declares, they can't. Jobs are clearly the big- gest issue, in Kiryat Shmoneh as elsewhere. Ac- cording to Azran, 80 percent of the immigrants in his town are unable to find work once they have completed their basic Hebrew studies. The mayor has asked the government to solve this problem by placing orders with firms in and around Kiryat Shomneh. Were there enough orders, he says, "we'd be only too pleased to take in another 10,000 immigrants." It could be argued that Mr. Azran's statements were an attempt to blackmail the government into giving greater support to Kiryat Shmoneh, which, indeed, it j or 1-800-342.5604 Nechemia Meyers writes from Rehovot, Israel. has now done. Soon after he spoke, the Ministry of Defense announced that it would increase the work force at the military in- dustries plant in Kiryat Shmoneh. This decision will be of some benefit there, but it won't help the many other communities where immi- grant unemployment is al- ready a serious problem. What makes matters worse is that newcomers either have skills for which there is little or no demand in Israel or, like doctors and mining engineers, jobs for which Israel already has a surplus. The problem is not limited to specific fields. According to Shmuel Slavin, director general of the Ministry of Labor, there may be 500,000 unemployed Israelis in three years time (as opposed to It is only recently that government officials have acknowledged the gravity of absorption problems. 124,000 today). This figure is based on the realistic presumption that Israel's gross national product will increase by four percent, a year; a rise of over 12 per- cent would be required to keep unemployment at its present level. Job and housing shortages are inevitable considering the size of the current wave of immigration, though the government could have done far more to prepare con- tingency plans. Indeed, despite warnings from Natan Sharansky and other immigrant leaders, it was only recently that Prime Minister Shamir and his col- leagues dropped their "everything will be alright" - smiles and began to ac- knowledge the gravity of ab- sorption problems, which have already caused many Soviet Jews to postpone their aliyah. There is no magic solution to these problems. But unless the government gets its act together, and receives greater outside assistance, the last big chance to de- velop Kiryat Shmoneh and hundreds of other Israeli communities may be miss- ed. CI