No Problem in Cooperating with Communist Regime, Rumanian Chief Rabbi Tells Premier

Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen told Prime Minister Nicolae Ceausescu here today that he, as an Orthodox rabbi, had no problems in cooperating with the materialistic society of Rumania “whose concepts of human life and human happiness is deeply ethical and in accord with our own teachings.” The Chief Rabbi shared an audience with the Prime Minister with the Patriarch of Rumania and the Bishops of the Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical Churches of Rumania. The Prime Minister told the religious leaders that his government valued their “attachment to the cause of peace and friendship between peoples.”

Rabbi Rosen, who spoke for the Federation of Jewish Communities of which he is president, also told the Prime Minister that in the past “regimes stemming from so-called religious groups had brought pogroms and the burning of synagogues.” He also told the Rumania Communist leader that “your policy in support of the sovereignty and independence of all peoples, large and small, and which advocates the solution of all problems by negotiation, has won world acclaim.”