The first kosher take-out restaurant in the Soviet Union will be opened on the grounds of the Chorale Synagogue in Moscow next month, it was announced here by Rabbi Arthur Schneier of New York, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation.
Schneier said approval for the kosher food service had been given by Konstantin Kharchev, chairperson of the Council of Religious Affairs, USSR Council of Ministers.
At a recent meeting with Kharchev in Moscow at which they discussed plans for the new facility, Schneier said, it was agreed that the take-out restaurant would be established as an interim step prior to the opening of a full-fledged kosher restaurant. Earlier this year, on his return from the Soviet Union, Schneier reported that Soviet government approval had been given for a kosher restaurant to be opened in Moscow. Because of problems in finding a suitable site for the restaurant, the provisional step of a take-out service was suggested by Schneier and accepted by Kharchev.
The Soviet official, who was the guest of Schneier in the U.S. late last year, is currently part of a Chautauqua Society “people-to-people” delegation of Soviet citizens, including an interfaith group of Russian Orthodox, Baptist, Catholic, Jewish and Moslem religious leaders, that arrived in the United States last Friday.
The Jewish member of the delegation is Rabbi Adolph Shayevich, spiritual leader of the Chorale Synagogue in Moscow. The visitors will be in Washington Sunday, August 30.
KOSHER FOOD FROM HUNGARY
Kosher food for the Moscow take-out service will be imported into the USSR from Hungary under the terms of an agreement Schneier worked out with Imre Miklos, chairperson of the Hungarian Church Office, a post equivalent to that of Minister of Religion.
Schneier pointed out that a wide variety of kosher foods was currently produced in Hungary, including cured meats, fruit preserves, wine and cheese. The only rabbinical seminary in Eastern Europe is located in Budapest, he noted.
All of the kitchen equipment that will be used for the take-out facility and also for the kosher restaurant when it is opened will be furnished by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, Schneier said.
The Foundation will also provide “seed money” for the initial supply of foodstuffs that will be made available in the take-out restaurant, he added. The Appeal of Conscience leader, who is the rabbi of Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, said he expected “strong interest” among Moscow Jews in the kosher take-out restaurant and expressed the hope that, after the initial investment in food and equipment was made, the facility would become self-supporting.
The take-out restaurant will be located in a small building on the grounds of the Chorale Synagogue in Moscow. It is currently used for kiddush (refreshments) following Sabbath and holiday services in the synagogue.
In a related development, Schneier reported that 5,000 copies of a Hebrew-Russian Pentateuch (chumash), shipped to the Soviet Union from New York, were now being made available to synagogue-goers in Moscow and other Jewish communities in the Soviet Union. The chumash was originally printed in 1902 in Vilna (now Vilnius, capital of Lithuania) and reprinted by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation.
Five thousand copies were shipped to the USSR in 1977 but another 5,000 copies were held up by the deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations. Schneier won permission to complete the shipment in a meeting in Moscow earlier this year with Kharchev, to whom he presented a copy when they met in Moscow.
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