Council for Judaism Denies U.s., USSR Role in Exchanges with Rabbi Levin

The American Council for Judaism, in a statement today designed to dispose of “unfounded and irresponsible rumors” connected with the forthcoming visit of Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin of Moscow at the Council’s invitation, said that all communications between the Council and Rabbi Levin, “despite rumors to the contrary, have been private exchanges between Rabbi Levin and us, with no intervention or assistance by the governments of the United States or the Soviet Union.”

The Council will hold a public meeting for Rabbi Levin in Town Hall, New York, on June 13, it said, to which “invitations have been sent on a wide basis to many Jewish academicians and religious leaders.” It asserted that “except for respecting what we have been led to believe are certain specific predilections of Rabbi Levin, we have deliberately ignored ideological and philosophical differences. Accordingly, we have invited a wide variety of distinguished, religiously-oriented Jews.”

The Council said that “out of deference to what we understand to be Rabbi Levin’s views, we avoided issuing official invitations to organizations.” It asserted that it had advised representatives of organizations that they were “perfectly free” to deal with Rabbi Levin and his colleagues.

Novosti, the Soviet overseas propaganda agency, disclosed last weekend that two members of the four-man Jewish religious mission, which Rabbi Levin was to head, will not be able to make the trip to the United States. Rabbi Levin will be accompanied only by David Stiskin, cantor of the Leningrad Synagogue. The Soviet Embassy in Washington said that it had no information about any meetings scheduled for Rabbi Levin other than the one set up by the Council for Judaism. The Embassy will not arrange any functions for the Moscow rabbi.