The State Department–from Secretary of State William P. Rogers on down–welcomed Leonid Rigerman yesterday with a warmth beyond diplomatic cordiality and treated him to a kosher lunch. The meal had been scheduled for the Foreign Service Association Club, but that establishment, it was discovered, could not provide kosher food. High State Department officials joining Rigerman over lunch plied him for two hours with questions about Soviet anti-Semitism. A Department spokesman said afterward: “We thought he is a bright and reasonable man.” Following lunch, the newly arrived American citizen visited Secretary Rogers and Under-Secretary John N. Irwin. He then had a private half-hour talk with Martin J. Hillenbrand, Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, during which they discussed possible initiatives for the relief of Soviet Jewry, according to a member of Rigerman’s party. Rigerman also met–accidentally–Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin, who was at the Department at the same time. At Ohev Shalom Talmud Torah last night, more than 700 persons attended an open house at which the soft-spoken Rigerman answered questions for almost three yours.
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