The Soviet Government has granted the Moscow Jewish community permission to print prayer books and religious calendars, B.Z. Goldberg, American Yiddish journalist, disclosed today in a published interview concerning his impressions of Jewish religious life in the Russian capital.
Goldberg, who is touring the Soviet Union and Poland, as a representative of the Committee of Jewish Writers and Artists in the United States, reports that there are fourteen synagogues in Moscow-four in the city proper and ten in the suburbs. The average salary of a rabbi is 1,000 rubles monthly.
Reporting on a visit to one of the synagogues, he said that he found it well attended, with persons coming not only for prayer, but to study the Mishnah and Talmudic works. Attached to each synagogue, in addition to one or more rabbis, are a ritual slaughterer and several sextons.
The Moscow community council had an income of 2,600,000 rubles in 1945, Goldberg was told by Samuel Chobrutzky, council president, of which it donated 1,000,000 rubles for the reconstruction of communities destroyed by the Germans. The council income is derived from sale of tickets to Holy Day services, donations accompanying the reading of the Holy Scroll and fees for funeral services.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
