Council Says Russian Rabbi and Cantor Will Appear at Hunter College Wednesday

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin of Moscow’s Choral Synagogue and Cantor David Stiskin of Leningrad will appear at a public meeting here Wednesday at Hunter College under sponsorship of the American Council of Judaism, a Council spokesman said today. They were expected in New York tomorrow after stopping off in Montreal where their Moscow flight will land, and will be accompanied from Canada by Bill Gottlieb, the Council’s public relations director, he said. George Bagrash, acting executive director of the anti-Zionist Council, reported that Rabbi Levin said he was bringing a film on Jewish life in Russia and photographs of the same subject. The Council expects to display the latter at Hunter’s Assembly Hall, Park Ave. and East 69th St., where the public meeting will begin at 8:15 p.m. Richard Korn, the Council’s president, will be program chairman. At least 1,500 persons are expected — the number of tickets handed out by the Council for a Town Hall meeting of the delegation which was called off last week when the June 10 arrival date was changed.

Mr. Bagrash said he was not sure how long the delegation would remain in the United States. Reports have varied from one week to 25 days. He said that the Council is sponsoring only the one meeting, but that it was likely that other Jewish organizations would seek to meet with the two religious Jews. Rabbi Levin and Cantor Stiskin received visas from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow last Thursday. He said that he planned “to tell the truth” about the policy of the Soviet Union toward its Jewish population. The 74-year-old rabbi has always denied accusations that the Soviet Union persecutes its Jewish minority.