The celebration of Simchat Torah last week by 15,000 young boys and girls in the square of the Central Synagogue in Moscow was cited by B’nai B’rith president Label A. Katz last night as “proof that the calculated program to erase Jewish life from the Soviet scene is a failure.”
Addressing the opening session of the 1964-65 Herzl Institute lecture series, Mr. Katz, who is also co-chairman of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations, said that “this new evidence that a cultural consciousness persists among Soviet Jews, despite governmental suppressions, should inspire the Jews of America to continue their vigorous protests against anti-Jewish discriminations that exist in Russia today.”
(It was reported here from Leningrad, meanwhile, that, on the night of Simchat Torah, some 15,000 Jews in that city also took part in celebrations outside the local synagogue, which included singing and dancing in the streets late into the night.)
The Herzl Institute meeting, which was also addressed by Dr. Joseph Schechtman, member of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, was devoted to the subject, “Russia and the Jews.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
