Soviet Jews Warned in Moscow Not to Talk to Israelis and Tourists

Jews in the Soviet Union were warned yesterday by a Moscow newspaper against maintaining any contacts with members of the Israeli Embassy either by visiting the Embassy or by conversing with them in the Moscow synagogue, it was reported here today from the Soviet capital. They were also told not to talk to other foreign Jews visiting Russia.

The warning, published in the Moscow newspaper “Trud, ” sharply attacked three aged Jews charging them with allegedly dealing with the Israeli Embassy and other foreigners and with speculating in religious articles. Prayer books, prayer shawls and other religious articles are in short supply in the Soviet Union because of government bans on their imports or manufacture.

Singled out in the newspaper attack were Moise Chernukhin, 56; Zinovy Roginski, 66; and Shimon Sheiffer, 80. The attack closely paralleled a similar newspaper harangue against alleged Jewish relations with Israelis which preceded the closing of the Lvov synagogue last year.

Charging that Chernukhin had provided foreigners since 1939 with false reports about conditions in the Soviet Union, Trud asserted that he sold at speculative prices religious articles he obtained from tourists. The paper said he collected goods for speculation at the synagogue and had taken “books of dubious content” from the Israel Embassy.

Trud said Chernukhin’s behavior was so disgraceful that he was ousted from membership in the Moscow Synagogue Council of 20, a group that guides the synagogue’s affairs. Charging that he could neither read nor write, the Moscow paper said Chernukhin was invited last year to the Israel Embassy for a party honoring the Israel delegation to the world Congress for Peace and Disarmament.

(An Israeli embassy spokes man in Moscow noted that, as an official of the synagogue, Chernukhin was invited to embassy functions and that the invitation always went through the Chief Rabbi in Moscow as a matter of protocol.)

Trud said that Roginsky, at a reception at the Israel Embassy last year in celebration of the Jewish New Year, allegedly had for speculative purposes picked up prayer shawls, prayer books and other literature made available on tables in the room. Sheiffer was criticized for having allegedly entered the special enclosure reserved for foreigners at the synagogue where he was said to have begged for prayer shawls, literature and “souvenirs. ” Israeli diplomats are obliged to sit at a special reserved section in the Moscow synagogue to prevent Russian Jews from coming in contact with them.