President Francois Mitterrand promised Wednesday that “the cause of Soviet Jewry could not and would not be abandoned.” He made the pledge to four Jewish leaders who met with him on the occasion of the annual meeting of the European Branch of the International Conference for Soviet Jewry which opened here Wednesday.
The delegation included Natan Shcharansky, the aliya activist now a citizen of Israel; Seymour Reich, president of B’nai B’rith International; Leon Dulzin, chairman of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency Executives; and Theo Klein, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Organizations in France (CRIF). They were accompanied by Ovadia Sofer, Israel’s Ambassador to France.
Shcharansky had met privately with Mitterrand on Tuesday to thank the French leader for his personal intervention which helped secure Shcharansky’s release last February.
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