The Chief Rabbi of the Soviet Union, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin, did not attribute “ulterior motives” to Israeli Embassy staff members who distributed religious articles recently in Moscow, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said here today.
Commenting on the exchange of letters on the subject between Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim of Israel and Rabbi Levin, the spokesman said Israel’s Ambassador in Moscow, Yosef Tekoah, had received a protest from Moscow’s Jewish community leaders requesting that the distributions be halted.
In their protest, criticism was leveled against synagogue officials who were said to have exploited the newly available prayer books, prayer shawls and mezuzot for “material and crude purposes.” These charges have also been made in Moscow by Rabbi Levin, who has censured three synagogue officials for dealing with the religious articles distributed by the Israeli Embassy personnel.
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