Rabbis Who Meet with Reagan Say the President Understands and is Sympathetic to Soviet Jewry Issue

A group of rabbis who met with President Reagan today to express their “anxiety and concern” about the plight of Soviet Jewry left the White House confident that the President understood and was sympathetic to the issue.

“Hopefully, if there is going to be thaw in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union the issue of Soviet Jews will be one of the items on the agenda,” Rabbi Joseph Sternstein, vice president of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry (NCSJ), said after he and six others had a brief meeting with Reagan.

Sternstein said the rabbis did not press Reagan to bring the issue up at the Geneva talks on disarmament. But he noted that Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz have raised the issue at meetings with the Soviet Union and that the Jewish community believes that “anything that could be done will be done” by the Administration.

“That does not mean that we insist or demand that it (the Soviet Jewry issue) be linked with agreements on other issues,” Sternstein stressed, “but that the issue be there and at every opportunity be made to see what could be done.”

PART OF A CONGRESSIONAL FAST AND PRAYER VIGIL

The rabbis were in the White House as part of an all day convocation on Soviet Jewry sponsored by the NCSJ and the Synagogue Council of America. They met with Reagan after being among 200 persons who participated in a rally on the steps of the Capitol as part of the third annual Congressional Fast and Prayer Vigil for Soviet Jews. Some 200 members of the House participated in the vigil and/or fast.

Sternstein said the President appeared knowledgeable about the issue and brought up himself the recent spate of arrests against teachers of Hebrew in the Soviet Union. The rabbis told the President that “the American Jewish community will not rest until every possible effort is exerted on behalf of freedom for Soviet Jews.”

This was stressed also at the Capitol rally by members of Congress and leaders of rabbinic and congregational organizations. Rabbi Louis Bernstein, president of the Rabbinical Council of America (Orthodox), said the entire Jewish community is determined not to rest until Soviet Jews have the right to freely worship and to emigrate.

Rabbi Henry Michelman, executive vice president of the Synagogue Council of America, said that all 3,000 congregations in North America will be mobilized in this effort. He added that many in the Christian community “have joined their voices to ours in a single cry of outrage and protest.”

NEED TO STRESS SOVIET JEWISH ISSUE CITED

Both Reps. Robert Mrazek (D. NY) and John Porter (R. III.) stressed the importance of bringing up the Soviet Jewry issue at all meetings with the USSR. Porter added that it should not only be raised but be “part of the substantive negotiations.”

Perhaps the most optimistic note came from Rep. Jack Kemp (R. NY) who said, “This can be the year in which we can see a mass exodus” of Soviet Jews “if negotiations follow through the relationship that is beginning to emerge between the United States and the Soviet Union.” He did not elaborate.

At the White House, the rabbis presented Reagan with an original silk-screen depicting Soviet Jewry by Selma Hurwitz and an illuminated Passover Haggadah.

In addition to Sternstein those participating were: Bernstein; Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform); Marshall Wolke, president of the United Synagogue of America (Conservative); Rabbi Gunther Plaut, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform); Rabbi Alexander Shapiro, president of the Rabbinical Assembly of America (Conservative); and Rabbi Ira Korinow of the Union of Councils of Soviet Jewry.

Earlier in the day, the rabbis were briefed on the issue at B’nai B’rith International by Joshua Pratt, a minister counselor at the Israeli Embassy and a former Jewish refusenik, Evgenia Yudborovsky. Later many of the rabbis who came from across the country discussed the issue with their Senators and Representatives. The day ended with a reception at the Israel Embassy hosted by Ambassador Meir Rosenne.