Appeals for larger contributions to the United Jewish Appeal and for greater buying of Israel bonds marked Passover services in many synagogues throughout the country. American Jewry was also urged by rabbis in their Passover sermons to work for the cause of freedom and liberty everywhere.
Gen. James A. Van Fleet, commander of the Eighth Army in Korea, was the honored guest at a Seder held in the bomb-scarred Banta Hotel in Seoul, attended by about 1,000 Jewish GI’s. In a special Passover message which he personally broadcast over Armed Forces Radio to the soldiers of Jewish faith in Korea, he expressed the hope that the example of the Passover story would “kindle anew in crisis to preserve for posterity a free world.
The National Jewish Welfare Board reported that Seders were held by little groups of Jews in the American armed services in Saigon, Indo-China, Bangkok, Thailand, and Calcutta and Karachi, India. The Festival of Liberation was also observed at Nouassour and Casablanca, in French Morocco, where civilians from government projects in progress there joined American servicemen from all over Morocco. The Passover service was read in Alaska and even in Iceland, where a chaplain flown by the U.S. Air Force held a services.
In Germany, Seders for American Jewish soldiers were set up in Berlin, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Garmisch, Heidelberg, and Frankfurt. In the last two cities, the USO-JWB director aided in holiday arrangements. The traditional Four Questions were asked in the Canal Zone, in Cuba and in the British West Indies. In the U.S., the J.W.B. arranged Seders in camps, veterans hospitals and communities from Maine to Ft. Hood, Tex., scene of “Operation Long Horn.”
Parcels containing special Passover food have been shipped to 2,000 needy refugee families in Israel and Europe by Agudath Israel of America. The needy families who benefited from this program, which is an annual project of Agudath Israel, were selected by a co-ordinating committee of rabbinic leaders in Israel and the United States.
Some 600 newly-arrived immigrants, all of them victims of Old World oppression, attended the Passover Seder in the shelter of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
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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.
