Second Soviet Cultural Center Slated to Open in Leningrad

A second Jewish cultural center will be established in the Soviet Union, following the establishment of one in Moscow Feb. 12, the World Jewish Congress announced here Monday.

Agreement on a Leningrad center was reached last week after extensive discussions between WJC Vice President Isi Leibler and Jewish cultural and religious activists in that city, according to WJC executive director Elan Steinberg.

The project is in association with Leningrad’s central synagogue.

Both cultural centers are credited to the liberalized Soviet policies toward the Jewish community.

“In discussions with Soviet officials in Moscow last year, we were given assurances that Jewish religious and cultural centers could be established throughout the Soviet Union wherever a need could be demonstrated,” Steinberg said.

He said that policy was confirmed to WJC President Edgar Bronfman during meetings in Moscow with Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and other senior officials Feb. 13.

Leibler, a leader of the Australian Jewish community, outlined commitments made for the cultural center in Leningrad by that city’s chief rabbi, Chaim Levitas, and Gregory Grossman, president of the central synagogue.

Levitas said the synagogue would provide premises for the center, which would be open to all Jews. It will include a lending library, an audio-visual center, courses in Hebrew and Torah, and seminars and lectures on Jewish literature and art.

Levitas agreed also to establish a yeshiva, which would be headed by a rabbi invited from overseas.

Meanwhile, the Moscow Jewish Cultural Center inaugurated its lecture series with a talk on Jewish history by Professor Morris Altschuler of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

A bout 400 people attended.

In addition to the cultural center, a Judaic Studies Center opened in Moscow Feb. 22, including the first yeshiva and rabbinical seminary since the Bolsheviks outlawed formal religious education in 1917.