10,000 Soviet Jews in Italy Expected at Lubavitch Seders

Some 10,000 Soviet Jews waiting in Italy will sit down this week to what is for most of them their first Pesach seder ever.

The Chabad-Lubavitch organization is making the seders and has sent in rabbinic student volunteers from New York and Israel to lead them.

Like the Hasidic tale of the Jew who still remembered the tree in the forest, but no longer remembered the prayer, for most of these Soviet Jews, “it was a tradition to remember the matzah, but not all the halachot,” said Rabbi Yitzhak Chazan, the Lubavitcher rebbe’s emissary in Rome, who is overseeing the giant operation.

Chazan, in a telephone interview from Rome, said “80 percent might know the details of Pesach” and “some maybe remembered to get matzah, but not to keep kosher for Pesach.”

But of all the 9,600 Soviet Jews now in Ladispoli and surrounding Italian towns, only “about 1 to 2 percent” have ever experienced a Pesach seder. Chazan estimated.

That is how many Jews are now registered in the transit center in Rome, he said, but Jewish agencies are expecting a full 10,000 will be gathered in the Italian towns by Wednesday night, when Passover begins. “Each day, there are 100 arrivals,” Chazan said.

ALREADY KNOW ‘FOUR QUESTIONS’

Lubavitch, which is working in tandem with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, has been holding classes for these Soviet Jews on the meaning of Passover, the festival of freedom.

Of the Soviet Jewish children in the Italian towns who have been attending schools administered by Lubavitch and the Joint, “most already know the ‘Ma Nishtana’ (Four Questions), even those who came out two weeks ago,” said Chazan.

In the town of Santa Marinella, Lubavitch announced it would begin distributing a kilo (2.2 pounds) of matzoh to each family representative at about 9 a.m. last Sunday. “We had a crowd of about 800 to 900 by 6 a.m.,” said Chazan. “The local residents didn’t understand what was going on. They called the police.”

Monday afternoon, he said, about 800 people gathered in the town’s main square for a lecture about what the seder will be. Tuesday, there was to be a communal “bedikatz chametz” (search for the chametz) in each of the towns in which the refugees are temporarily living.

The seders Lubavitch has arranged for them will be gargantuan. A seder for 1,200 will take place in an athletic field in Ladispoli, which the town’s mayor has let them use at no charge.

In Santa Marinella, 1,800 Soviet Jews will sit down in two rooms of one building.

Although it is a time of frustration for the Soviets “waitniks,” most of whom wish to come to America as refugees, the time being spent in Ladispoli and other towns may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Chazan likened this time to the 40 years the Jews spent wandering in the desert after leaving Egypt, unlearning their past and preparing themselves anew for entry into a Jewish life.

“It’s a good moment for them to get closer to Yiddishkeit,” he said. “I think most of them don’t get to know something if they go straight to America.”