U.S. Jewish Groups Ask Khrushchev to Intervene for Release of Matzoth

Premier Khrushonev’s personal “intervention to insure the prompt distribution of matzoh parcels” sent by American and other Jews to Jews in the USSR and now being detained by Soviet authorities was urged today in a cable to him by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry.

The cable sent to the Kremlin in Moscow, was signed by Lewis H. Weinstein of Boston, on behalf of 24 major national Jewish organizations, stating that they “represent the majority of America’s 5,500, 000 Jews, ” The American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry will convene April 5-6 in Washington to show an expression of unity in protesting growing religious and cultural discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union.

“We wish to express our profound disappointment and regret over the information reported in the Soviet press indicating that shipments of matzoh from abroad to Soviet Jewish families are being detained by customs authorities in Moscow, ” the cable said. “Unless release of these shipments is forthcoming immediately, these parcels cannot arrive in time for the Passover observance. We urge your intervention to insure prompt distribution of the matzoh parcels now being detained.

“We are also dismayed over the campaigns reportedly being conducted in the Soviet press designed to intimidate recipients of these parcels and to force them into refusing or returning the matzoh packages sent. We understand shipments of matzoh for Passover were authorized and that import licenses were issued to numerous companies throughout the world by Soviet authorities. We ask for immediate cessation of any acts of harassment aimed at Jewish families receiving these packages.”