A major breakthrough for the preservation and enhancement of Jewish life in the Soviet Union has been reached in an agreement between American and Soviet committees.
The historical agreement, announced last week by New York City Councilman Noach Dear, permits access to Jewish cemeteries and Jewish historical and religious texts; provides for the preservation and maintenance of Jewish grave sites; provides for separate Jewish burial grounds; and offers cooperation to locate, maintain and provide access to Jewish books.
The agreement was reached between the Soviet Committee to Support the Preservation of Jewish Historical Monuments and the Joint Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the Soviet Union, a loose confederation of Orthodox Jewish groups here.
The Joint Committee is co-chaired by Dear; Albert Reichmann, a Toronto-based businessman; and Julius Berman, a New York attorney who is a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The Soviet committee is chaired by Konstantin Kharchev, minister of religion of the Soviet Union.
It is co-chaired by Nikolai Kolesnik, chairman of the Council of Religious Affairs of the Ukrainian Council of Ministers; Yuri Reshetov, deputy head of the Department of Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs of the Soviet Foreign Ministry; Moscow Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevitch; and Samuel Zivs, law professor and former co-chairman of the Anti-Zionist Committee of the Soviet Public.
During a November visit of the Soviet group to New York, Zivs declared publicly and in writing that the Anti-Zionist Committee was being disbanded.
In a separate development, the World Jewish Congress has accepted a request by Shayevitch to meet with him in Moscow during its next visit there.
Shayevitch wrote a letter, on WJCongress stationery, to WJCongress President Edgar Bronfman Jan. 1 stating “unequivocally” that he is “not a member of the Anti-Zionist Committee and that the committee was dismantled.”
Shayevitch also reiterated his regret “that such a committee existed in the past,” and said he had never participated in anti-Jewish or anti-Israel acts.
Shayevitch has long been considered a pariah in the Jewish community because of his employment by the Soviet state, his association with the KGB, and for the fact he was a member of the Anti-Zionist Committee.
Shayevitch is in Israel for his first time, as part of an unprecedented official Soviet Jewish religious delegation visiting the Jewish state.
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