The Synagogue Council of America, composed of all rabbinical and lay organizations of Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jewry in the United States, announced here today that it has officially extended an invitation to Rabbi Jehuda Levin, Chief Rabbi of Moscow’s Great Synagogue, for a visit to this country with a delegation of other Jewish religious leaders from the USSR. It is up to the Soviet authorities to permit Rabbi Levin to accept this invitation.
The announcement was made by Rabbi Theodore L. Adams, chairman of the Council’s international affairs commission, at a reception in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel to 10 high Christian religious dignitaries from the Soviet Union, headed by Archbishop Nikodim of the Russian Orthodox Church. The top Russian clergymen are in this country as guests of the National Council of Churches.
During the reception, attended by more than 50 of America’s top rabbinical leaders, as well as by leaders of the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress, about two hours of questioning took place in which rabbis asked the visitors about the lack of an overall, Jewish-religious organization of Russian Jewry, the prohibition against matzoth, the lack of Hebrew Bibles and prayer books, the closing of many synagogues, and the Soviet refusal to permit Jews to emigrate for purposes of family reunification.
Archbishop Nikodim, acting as spokesman for the group, insisted in every instance that the Soviet laws permit equality for all religions. He said he will relay the questions to Rabbi Levin, in Moscow, when they meet there again.
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