A top Israeli Embassy official was charged yesterday by a Soviet newspaper with “subversive activities” among Jews in the Republic of Georgia, it was reported here today from Moscow. The charge was the fifth in a series of such accusations against Soviet diplomats stationed in Moscow published in the last two months.
The newspaper Zarya Vostoka, published in Tiflis, the Georgian capital, asserted that First Secretary David Bartov tried to get Russian Jews “to betray” the Soviet Union. The newspaper sharged that Mr. Bartov, accompanied by Yosef Tekoah, the Israeli Ambassador to Russia, visited two Georgian synagogues.
The newspaper accused them of making an “undisguised appeal” to the Jews in the synagogues “to leave their fatherland, to betray the country that brought them up as honest Soviet citizens.” The newspaper said that the Jews had rebuffed the diplomats. The latest denunciation was sent as part of an accelerated effort to prevent contacts between Israeli diplomats and Soviet Jews.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
