Soviet Jews will be told this week, in a Rosh Hashanah message beamed to the Soviet Union from powerful transmitters in West Germany on behalf of American Jewry, that they have not been forgotten by their fellow Jews throughout the world. The broadcast will be made by Orthodox Rabbi Gershon Jacobson, once a Soviet Army officer, who fled to the West six years ago and is now serving as a rabbi of a Brooklyn synagogue.
The New Year’s greeting will be broadcast by Radio Liberation on the eve of Rosh Hashanah and repeated several times during the ten High Holy Days of penitence which follow. Rabbi Jacobson will explain the particular significance of the rites of liberation in both Russian and Hebrew. Excerpts from Hebrew liturgical music including the Kol Nidre will also be included in the ten-minute program.
Rabbi Jacobson, who has broadcast to the USSR before over Radio Liberation, reported this week that the finally received the first “fan letter.” It came from a Polish Jew who had heard his Radio Liberation program a year ago while living in a small Ukrainian village. The Jew was repatriated to Poland earlier this year, from where he emigrated to Vienna.
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