Says Soviets Predicted 50,000 Exit Visas in 1973 Rabbi Teitz Reports Rabbi in Odessa Removed from Po

Rabbi Pinchas Teitz, a leading Orthodox Rabbi, reported today that he had been informed on his most recent visit to Russia that Rabbi Israel Schwartzblat had been removed from his post as rabbi of Odessa’s one synagogue by Soviet authorities.

Rabbi Teitz, a former member of the presidium of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, said he understood that Rabbi Schwartzblat had lost the position because the Jewish population of Odessa opposed him. He was believed to have worked in close cooperation with the government. Rabbi Teitz said that with the shortage of rabbis in the Soviet Union, Rabbi Schwartzblat almost certainly would not be replaced.

Rabbi Teitz also reported he had been told by Soviet officials that they expected that 50,000 exit visas would be issued in 1973 to Jews seeking to leave for Israel, which would be an all-time record since the Soviet Union began to allow Jews to leave a few years ago.

The Elizabeth rabbi also reported that Rabbi Yaacov Fishman, the newly-appointed rabbi of the Choral Synagogue in Moscow, and Ephraim Kaplun, the new president of the congregation, had started an ambitious program to train religious functionaries at the synagogue’s seminary, such as ritual slaughterers, but not rabbis. Rabbi Teitz said he was told that three younger Jews had been accepted for the revived program of seminary studies, one of them from Biro-Bidjan, the so-called Soviet Jewish Republic. He said the young man was in training to be a ritual slaughterer and that, when he completed his training, he planned to return to Biro-Bidjan to serve there.