Judaism Council Says Four Soviet Jews Coming to U.S. to Attend Conclave

A spokesman for the American Council for Judaism said today that the organization had been advised of the identity of the members of the proposed Soviet Jewish religious delegation to this country and was satisfied that the four men named were responsible Jewish leaders who could be received as representatives of the Soviet Jewish community. The spokesman for the anti-Zionist body said that it was possible that Chief Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin of Moscow would be able to make the journey and would head the delegation. He declined to Identity the other delegation members at this time.

The delegation – the first Jewish religious group to receive permission from the Soviet authorities to leave Russia to establish direct contact with Jews abroad — will come here at the invitation of the Council for Judaism which had originally invited Chief Rabbi Levin to address its convention in May. The convention was postponed until the fall and the Council is now discussing a date for the visit with the delegation in Moscow, the spokesman said. He reported that the Council would be the hosts of the Soviet Jewish delegation at one meeting but would not be sponsoring the delegation or arranging for a tour of the country or for other meetings.

The original disclosure that a Soviet Jewish delegation would visit the United States under the Council’s auspices met with an angry reaction. The American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry denounced the reported visit as “a cynical attempt to perpetrate a grotesque hoax on the American public.”