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Rabbi, Cleric Present Appeal on Behalf of Russian Jews to Soviet Embassy

March 30, 1971
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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A rabbi and a Christian clergyman visited the Soviet Embassy here today to deliver an appeal on behalf of Soviet Jews. Rabbi Richard G. Hirsch, director of the religious action center of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Rev. Dr. David Hunter, deputy secretary general of the National Council of Churches of Christ of America, conferred for 90 minutes with two Embassy officials. They brought with them a statement by the Synagogue Council of America, representing the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox branches of American Judaism, which appealed to the Soviet Communist Party Congress that opens in Moscow tomorrow to eliminate “the cruel vestiges of Stalin’s rule” against the more than three million Soviet Jews. The Soviet officials, Igor Bubnov, political counsellor of the Embassy and Alexander Yefstafyev, press counsellor, refused to receive the petition on grounds that the Embassy and Alexander Yefstafyev, press counsellor, refused to receive the petition on grounds that the Embassy does not accept such documents as a matter of policy. But they spoke at length with the two visitors.

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