Jacob S. Potofsky, president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, strongly condemned the Soviet Union last night for its efforts to eradicate Jewish culture and its ‘outrageous blow’ at 3,000,000 Jews of the USSR by severely restricting this year their right to bake and obtain matzohs.
Mr. Potofsky addressed the traditional “Third Seder,” conducted by the National Committee for Labor Israel, the American fund-raising arm of Histadrut, the Israel Federation of Labor. More than 2,000 guests attended the festivities at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. A number of United Nations Ambassadors participated, including Israel’s UN delegation chairman, Michael S. Comay; Ambassador U On Sein, of Burma; and Ambassador Gershon Collier, of Sierra Leone.
Citing this year’s Soviet ban on matzoh-baking in state factories as one of the anti-Jewish steps taken by Soviet authorities, Mr. Potofsky said: “I condemn this effort to eradicate Jewish culture and tradition from the heart of Russian Jewry, even if that culture and tradition is saturated with the ideals of freedom which the Soviets apparently exalt as their ultimate goal. The Soviet regime has gone to extremes to cut off normal contact between the Jews of that country and their fellow Jews everywhere even by the crude device of prohibiting the import of matzoh which have been offered as a gift to these families behind the Iron Curtain who wish to preserve their heritage. This is not a simple curtailment of religious traditions but an outrageous blow at an expression of man’s hope for liberation from bondage, contemporary as well as ancient.”
In another address, Dr. Sol Stein, executive director of the National Committee for Labor Israel, cited the progress made by Israel during the past 14 years. “This has been not only physical growth and a population explosion due to the influx of more than a million immigrants, but a vast cultural and political upsurge that has given us a stable democracy in the Middle East. Israel has demonstrated that backwardness is not a chronic disease but a malady for which there is a remedy.”
Other speakers included Isaiah Avrech, American representative of the Histadrut executive; Aharon Becker, general secretary of Histadrut; and Yehoshua Levi, the Federation’s treasurer. A cable was read from Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, President of Israel, appealing for increased aid to Israel’s pioneering forces.
A highlight of the “Third Seder” was the lighting of six candles in memory of the six million, Jews who died during the Hitler regime, and the chanting of the Russian poem “Babi Yar,” which denounces anti-Semitism.
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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.
