During his work visit to Israel, the Secretary General of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) Professor Michael Chlenov has held a number of meetings with the chairman of the Knesset Committee for Aliyah, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, Danny Danon (Likud). EAJC representative in Israel, Haim Ben-Yakov and veteran of the Independent Jewish Movement of the USSR Yuli Kosharovsky also took part in the meeting.

The center of attention during the meetings was the state of the former refusenika of many years, who live now in Israel. The veterans of the independent Jewish movement of the USSR turned to the EAJC with the request to help compel the Jewish authorities to create special pensions for those who had been refused repatriation from the Soviet government for more than 10 years. About 150 such families currently exist, and their financial situation is often deplorable.

In the 1970-80s, the Soviet Jews who applied for immigration to Israel usually lost their jobs. Many were arrested and persecuted outside legal boundaries for their activities in the Jewish movement. When at the end of the 1980's they finally received permission to leave the USSR, many were people of older age, and so had difficulties in finding a new job in Israel. Thus, many of the old otkazinks must now exist on a very small old age aid. Their request is to count the many years of forcefully being "refused" as governmental service, and to count their pension as equal to the average civil service pension. This problem was raised numerous times in the Knesset and in the government, but did not find a solution.

Michael Chlenov gave Danny Danon the letters of the refuseniks and their request for aid. The EAJC Secretary General underscored: "A positive solution to this painful problem will certainly heighten Israel's reputation as the Jewish state, which does not leave its citizens in peril, among the Jews of the Diaspora." In turn, Danny Danon promised to study the problem, and to present it for discussion to the Knesset and government organs.