Rabbi Max Schenk, spiritual leader of Congregation Shaarei Zedek of Brooklyn, charged here yesterday that the elimination of discrimination and anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union “so blatantly proclaimed by the revolution, and written into the USSR constitution, is a fraud and a lie.”
Reporting on his recent trip to the Soviet Union, at a special symposium of the 71st annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, here. Rabbi Schenk said that “anti-Semitic remarks are no longer punished and anti-Semitism is rife.” He told the Reform rabbis that there was only one synagogue in Moscow, and three small prayer rooms, for 500,000 Jews.”Kiev and Leningrad each have one synagogue for some 300,000 Jews in each city, ” Rabbi Schenk asserted.
Dr.Nelson Glueck,president of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, warned the rabbis against permitting the “getting and giving of money” to become the major premise in community life. Dr. Glueck said there was a burning desire among Jews “for intellectualise-Judaization, to know why they are and should remain Jews, and how they and their children can find in Judaism the spiritual strength that all human beings so elementally require.”
The conference reelected Rabbi Bernard J.Bamberger,of New York, as president, and elected Rabbi Albert G, Minda, of Minneapolis, as vice-president.
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