Six Israelis Invited by Soviet Committee to Visit USSR

Six Israelis have been invited by the Soviet Committee for Peace, a government-sponsored unit, to come to the USSR for a two-week visit, it was learned here today. The six Israelis are members of the Israeli Committee for Improving Relations With the Soviet Union, and only one of them belongs to a political party. None of the six has an official position in Israel. The surprise invitation was linked by observers to the recent visit to Moscow of Meir Wilner, Knesset member representing the pro-Kremlin Rakach Communists. The six Israelis are Nathan Yellin Mor, a commander of the Stern Gang in the time of the British Mandate and a former Knesset member; James Jacob Rosenthal, Parliamentary correspondent emeritus of Haaretz; Prof. Dan Miron of the Hebrew University’s Literature Department; Yaacov Riftin, a longtime Mapam MK who was struck off the party’s list of candidates for having views too far to the left of the leftist party; and Ruth Luvitch and Moshe Eidelberg, members of the Israeli Peace Committee and of the Communist-sponsored Israeli League for Friendship With the Soviet Union. Rosenthal told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Committee for Improving Relations With the Soviet Union holds that such improvement is not up to the Russians alone and that there is no harm in Soviet involvement in the Middle East. Rosenthal said the six-member mission will meet many Soviet Jews in its contacts with “authorized representative of the community,” whom he refused to name. He said he regarded the invitation as a gesture of friendship.