Rabbi Adolph Shayevitch, religious leader of Moscow’s Choral Synagogue, told Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on Wednesday that the government must give freedom to all nationalities, languages and religions in the Soviet Union.
Shayevitch spoke at a gathering of religious leaders called by Gorbachev to discuss rising tensions and conflicts between the dozens of nationalities and republics that make up the Soviet Union.
This is reportedly the first time Gorbachev has convened leaders of all religious movements in the Soviet Union, including Shayevitch, who is the country’s senior rabbi. At a similar meeting two years ago, Gorbachev conferred only with the heads of the Russian Orthodox Church.
According to Shayevitch, Gorbachev urged the religious leaders to use their moral authority to reduce tensions. The religious leaders must explain to their followers, Gorbachev said, that only if all the components of the Soviet Union hold together can the country be strong.
This Sunday a crucial referendum related to the nationalities question will be held across the country. The vote is being seen as a critical test of Gorbachev’s popularity, which has dropped precipitously because of his failure to improve the country’s miserable economic conditions.
Shayevitch said he told the gathering that “all of us are patriots. Jews can be citizens of the Soviet Union, but they also want to be Jews.”
RUSSIAN CHURCH LEADER TO VISIT ISRAEL
On Wednesday, the Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, Mordechai Eliyahu, met here with the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexei II. This is the first visit of an Israeli chief rabbi to the Soviet Union.
The patriarch was apparently wary of publicity about the historic meeting, as he barred reporters and photographers from attending.
Eliyahu was in Moscow to attend the second Congress of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in the Soviet Union, which ended its three-day conference on Wednesday.
The Ashkenazic chief rabbi, Avraham Shapira, also planned to attend, but canceled his participation at the last minute, for reasons that are not clear.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier, senior rabbi of the Park East Synagogue in New York, attended the meeting between Eliyahu and the patriarch, which lasted for 40 minutes. Schneier said the Russian Orthodox leader was looking forward to his first pilgrimage to Israel, which begins March 27.
The trip, the first ever to Israel by a head of the Russian Orthodox Church, was originally scheduled for mid-January, but was postponed because of the war in the Persian Gulf.
Eliyahu and Schneier asked the patriarch to speak out against anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union. Alexei reportedly replied that his church had done nothing to hurt the Jews and that it stood for peace.
While in Moscow, Schneier also met with Soviet officials, including Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, who assured Schneier that the Soviet Union is eager to play a positive and constructive role in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
