Some 5,000 guests attended Third Seders at the Commodore and Waldorf Astoria Hotels last night in the traditional mass celebration sponsored by the National Committee for Labor Israel. Last night’s affairs marked the 35th anniversary of the Histadrut, Israel’s general federation of labor, and the 13th anniversary of the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Among those who participated in the recitation of a modern Haggadah at the seders, were: Brig. Yigal Alon, of the Israel Army and a member of Israel’s Parliament, Abraham Shapiro, 80-year-old veteran guardsman in Israel and a founder of Petach Tikvah, Louis Segal, member of the Jewish Agency executive, Dr. Dov Biegun, general secretary of the National Committee, Dr. Joseph Burstein, head of the Histadrut’s department of culture and education, and Isaac Hamlin, Labor Zionist leader.
Ambassador Abba Eban, who was scheduled to attend the seders but was unable to come at the last minute, sent a recorded message in which he revealed that Cairo would soon have 250 Soviet jets assembled on fields only 12 minutes flying time from Israeli cities. He declared that the United States held the key to Israel’s program for balancing this. “unseemly aerial preponderance” by the “modern Pharaoh.” Messages were also sent by Israel’s President Itzhak Ben Zvi and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and Sen. Herbert H. Lehman.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.