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?,000 Refugees Attend Mass Seder in Cyprus-came-surrounded by Barred Wire

April 7, 1947
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Five–thousand interned refugees observed Passver at a communal Seder held in the open air on a huge playing field, according to report reaching here from Cyprus.

The Seder was opened by the singing of Hatikvah, as the glaring light from ?uge reflectors illuminated the dark field, which was surrounded by barbed wire. speakers included Isaac Ben Zvi, president of the Jewish National Council, and Mrs, Tamar de Sola Pool, representing Hadassab. Mrs. Pool announced that a children’s village would be established in Cyprus to educate and give agricultural training to the youngsters interned there.

The festivities, which were heightened by the entertainment provided by acaors and actresses who came here from Palestine for the occasion, lasted until 3 ##

Two special Seders were held here in the city’s Gentral Prison, one for the seven Jews under death sentences, the second for the other Jewish prisoners. Both were conducted without wine and concluded before eight p.m. A Seder was also held for women detainees in Bethlehem Prison.

In a Passover message broadcast to the Palestine population, Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog denounced the ceaseless bloodshed both within and without the Jewish community as strikingat the very roots of the Jewish tradition and defiling the Holy Land. “Extremist groups have assumed for themselves the prerogatives of passing death sentences and of executing them — prerogatives which in Jewish law were given only to the great Sanhedrin and only when the Tenples existed,” Rabbi Herzog said. Nevertheless, he concluded, history will lay responsibility for Palestine’s present situation on a world that hardened its heart to the cry and agony of the Jews.

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