Approximately a year and a half ago, a group of otkaznik veterans, repatriates from the former Soviet Union, wrote an official letter to EAJC Secretary General, Professor Michael Chlenov. In their letter, the former otkazniks wrote about the plight of former activists of the battle for aliyah once they have reached retirement age. After they wrote requests to emigrate to Israel, most of them were persecuted by the Soviet government, and for a long time they were deprived of qualified work. Having spent many years as otkazniks, many of these people were unable to re-qualify themselves professionally, either because of age or because they had spent many years out of their field, and were unable to earn a respectable pension. Having reached the age of retirement, they now have to live only on retirement benefits. The former otkazniks believe that they earned the right to receive additional material support from the Jewish state.

The letter signed by the initiative group, which included important public figure Yuli Kosharovsky and Rabbi Eliyahu Essas, held a request to the EAJC to support the just demands of the former fighters for the right of Soviet Jews to leave the USSR.

 

EAJC Secretary General Michael Chlenov held a number of working meetings about this problem with Dani Danon, who had then spearheaded  the Knesset Committee on Aliyah and Absorption. This problem was also discussed in the Knesset celebration of the 20th anniversary of  the Big USSR Aliyah, which was organized with the aid of the EAJC PR Department. Yet another round of the discussion of the question raised by former otkazniks took place at the end of November 2011, during the EAJC General Council session in Jerusalem.

 

During these meetings, the representatives of the Israeli side assured the EAJC Secretary General that the question will be solved in the nearest few months. Now the decision has finally been made, and is to be implemented by the Ministry of Absorption.

Minister of Absorption Sofa Landver has formed a committee to consider the claims of former Aliyah activists. The applicant must be a citizen of Israel who came to Israel being 36 or olde, and who has reached 55 years of age by the time of the application. Those who were otkazinks and participated in active Zionist activities have the right to compensations. An applicant whom the committee decides to be corresponding to these criteria will receive a voucher for goods and services for an annual sum of 7200 shekels.

When commenting this decision, EAJC Secretary General, Professor Michael Chlenov  noted, "Naturally, there is a certain feeling of satisfaction both from the fact that, though not entirely, justice has been restored to the fomer otkazniks, and from the fact that the EAJC played a certain part in this. I must agree with the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, who headed the committee that made this decision.

 

He said, 'A situation in which the heroes of the Aliyah, who broke through the Iron Curtain, must eke out a poverished existence in Israel is shameful for the Jewish state."

Of course, this support is not too generous, but the shameful situation has been broken, and some state attention has finally been paid to the people who wrote their names in modern Jewish history."