Chief Rabbi Yehuda Leib Levin of Moscow has categorically denied a report that he arranged a meeting on July 26 in Moscow between a delegation of visiting American Conservative rabbis and an official of the Soviet Council for Religious Affairs, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America said today.
Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Assembly of America, who headed the delegation which met with Michail Kadikoff, the Soviet official, said here Tuesday that the meeting had been arranged by Rabbi Levin and that the official had indicated that the Soviet Government would have no objections to invitations to Russian synagogues to affiliate with the World Council of Synagogues, which is under Conservative sponsorship.
Rabbi Joseph Karasick, UOJCA president, said he had been informed of Rabbi Levin’s disavowal by Rabbi Pinchas Teitz of Elizabeth, N.J. Rabbi Teitz was a companion of Chief Rabbi Levin during the latter’s tour this summer of the United States. Rabbi Karasick added that Rabbi Levin, in an overseas telephone conversation with Rabbi Teitz, asked Rabbi Teitz to convey his denial to the UOJCA president “with permission to make it known to the public.”
CHIEF RABBI SAYS CONTACT WITH CONSERVATIVE RABBIS ‘COURTESY’ ACT
According to Rabbi Karasick, Rabbi Levin also said that his sole contact with the Conservative rabbis was to receive them as a formal courtesy during their Moscow visit, “as is his practice with overseas Jewish visitors in general,” and that “he had had no discussion with them on any proposal to seek to get Russian synagogues to affiliate with the World Council of Synagogues or any other form of association between religious Jewry of the Soviet Union and the Conservative movement.”
The Moscow rabbinical leader also stated, according to the UOJCA president, that “in the Soviet Union, all synagogues are Orthodox and all rabbis are Orthodox” and that “there is no other form of Jewish religion than Orthodox Judaism in the USSR, and all synagogues in Soviet Russia adhere strictly to the Shulchan Aruch,” the basic code of Jewish religious law, “without any deviation or change.”
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