Israel Embassy in Moscow Denies Soviet Charges Against Its Official

The Israel Embassy in Moscow today emphatically denied charges by the Soviet press that the Embassy was being used to distribute Zionist and “anti- Soviet” propaganda to Russian Jews, it was reported here from the Soviet capital.

The latest Russian press attack on the Embassy was made by Trud, Moscow newspaper, which asserted that pamphlets and other material had been “furtively” distributed in a Moscow synagogue. The article singled out Abraham Agmon, first secretary of the Embassy, charging he handed out “nationalistic, Zionstic literature” and that he collected “rumors about Soviet reality.” Trud also charged that wives and even children had been used to pass out the alleged propaganda material.

Trud asserted that the Israel diplomat had offered to give booklets on Israel in return for “true information” about the position of Jews in Russia. As an example of the allegedly subversive literature, the Trud article described a 140-page, three-year Jewish calendar-almanac published in Israel in Russian, “intended for distribution among Jews in the Soviet Union.”

Novosti, a Soviet feature syndicate, announced yesterday that the Moscow Jewish congregation had started to bake matzoth in the home of a member, and would produce 13,000 pounds. The bakery, in Cherkizovo, a Moscow suburb, was said to have a daily capacity of up to 880 pounds. At the rate of two pounds per person, the expected supply would be enough for about 6, 000 people. While no data are available on the number of Moscow Jews who require matzoh for Passover observance, the city’s Jewish population is about 200, 000.