A denial of a report that the Kiev synagogue had been refused permission to bake matzoh for the Passover holiday this month was made by Soviet Ambassador Dimitri Chavakhin today to Chief Rabbi Isser Yehuda Unterman of Tel Aviv.
The envoy and the Chief Rabbi met during the ambassador’s visit to the Heichal Shlomo, the religious center in Jerusalem. Rabbi Unterman said that the envoy had authorized him to say that the report was without foundation. Rabbi Unterman then asked the envoy, in view of his denial of the report, whether it was necessary to send matzoh to Kiev and that the envoy replied “Let them send if they like.”
The meeting reportedly was a cordial one. However, when Rabbi Unterman raised questions about some aspects of Soviet Jewry’s religious life, an issue widely discussed in the West, the Ambassador said this was a “purely internal matter.”
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