A Brooklyn rabbi who was arrested in Kiev during the Six-Day War and interrogated by the Soviet secret police (KGB) for allegedly spying and organizing illegal immigration to Israel has refused an invitation to attend the Feb. 23 birthday celebration of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin of Moscow. Rabbi Harry Bronstein said in a letter to Menasha Michalowitz, chairman of the body that governs Moscow’s Central Synagogue. “I feel it would be unwise to expose myself again to the secret police.” He said that he would send Rabbi Levin a congratulatory cable.
The rabbi was arrested in June, 1967 and interrogated for two days until he became ill and was expelled to Prague. He told the JTA that he had been doing aliyah (immigration) work at the time.
Rabbi Bronstein is president of an organization known as Al Tidom (Do Not Be Silent) which furnishes Jews behind the Iran Curtain with cultural and religious needs. He is vice president of the Rabbinical Alliance of the United States (Orthodox) and a member of the executive of the Agudath Israel Organization.
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