A special prayer for the fate of Soviet Jewry, to be recited during the opening of the ark on Yom Kippur, has been distributed by the Chief Rabbinate to 15,000 synagogues in Israel and throughout the world, it was announced here today. The prayer, which was composed by Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim, calls for Divine intercession to end the oppression of Russian Jewry.
Noting that Russian Jewry had been separated from the mainstream of the Jewish people, and “that they have been deprived of their freedom and their synagogues and houses of learning have been shut down,” the prayer asks for Divine intervention to “deliver them from their servitude and grant them freedom” to observe the Torah without interference, and to emigrate to the Holy Land.
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