Falashas to Receive Matzoh from JDC

— The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has shipped over 390,000 pounds of Passover supplies to small Jewish communities throughout the world, including a shipment to Falasha Jews in Ethiopia, according to JDC president Henry Taub.

“The small Jewish communities, in their isolation, symbolize the need for all Jews to reach out to help one another to preserve Jewish tradition and to assure spiritual and physical survival. This,” Taub said, “is the traditional role of the JDC as the arm of the American Jewish Community concerned with rescue, relief, and rehabilitation of Jews and Jewish communities throughout the world.”

JDC executive vice president Ralph Goldman noted that JDC is shipping matzoh to Falasha Jews in Ethiopia, which will be distributed in Ethiopia by ORT. “The greatest problem in reaching the Falasha is their widespread dispersal, as most of them live in small villages which are geographically dispersed,” Goldman said.

He said that Passover supplies will also be distributed to the small Jewish community in Egypt for the fourth consecutive year. “For 31 years before that, Passover supplies were distributed by the International Red Cross,” he said. Officials estimate that there are 400 Jews in Egypt, divided between Alexandria with 250 and Cairo with 150.

Goldman added that of all the communities receiving Passover supplies, Rumania receives the largest amount, nearly 270,000 pounds. Tunisia receives 47,000 pounds and Poland 43,000 pounds. Other communities receiving Passover supplies were in Greece; Italy (for Soviet emigrants); Yugoslavia; Melilla and Cueta in Spanish Morocco; Portugal; Spain and Lebanon. The primary recipients in Italy are the Soviet Jewish emigrants celebrating their first Passover in freedom and who are waiting in Rome for visa formalities to be completed.