Seders for Aged, Infirm, Poor, Students, Arranged by Agencies

Special arrangements have been planned by Jewish communities throughout the United States to assure that the old, the infirm, the poor and college students away from home will have the opportunity–like their millions of fellow-Jews throughout the world–to enjoy traditional seder observances. One thousand of New York City’s indigent Jewish elderly will observe Passover at seders through arrangements by the Jewish Association of Services for the Aged and the Commission on Synagogue Relations of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.

Lawrence Buttenwieser, Federation president, said the program was one of many planned annually by the Federation’s 130 hospitals, homes for the aged, recreational centers and other agencies to serve Jews of all ages during Passover. The Passover program includes Federation agencies in Westchester and Long Island. The Federation’s Joint Passover Association is helping more than 5000 needy and aged Jews and Hasidic families, with monetary grants to buy Passover food and other requirements for the traditional seder.

In cooperation with Federation’s New York Society for the Deaf, adult deaf and deaf-blind Jews will join in a seder April 2, sponsored by the Hebrew Association for the Deaf and conducted in sign language. JASA officials said special attention would be paid to the limbless, wheelchair bound and otherwise disabled elderly with special transportation facilities to take them to and from the seders.

STUDENTS SPONSOR PASSOVER EVENTS

Among the celebrations of the Hillel unit at the University of California at Los Angeles, one of 38 area campuses assisted by the Los Angeles Hillel Council, home hospitality is being arranged for out-of-town students for the first seder night and throughout Passover. Hillel’s “Matzo Mobile” will be on the UCLA campus on April 3 and 4 to distribute Passover lunches prepared by Hillel students.

Hillel Extension will sponsor a variety of Passover events on the 33 campuses it serves in the Los Angeles area. Members of the Hillel unit at Pierce College will be joined by students from the new Poor park College campus for an “ecology walk” along the coastline, cleaning refuse from the beach. They will then conduct a creative seder service they wrote themselves.

The chaplaincy service of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, plans seders in 20 hospitals and penal institutions and is providing matzos and other Passover foods and gift packages to some 1600 patients and inmates in Southern California institutions. The Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles is providing special allowances for Passover needs, including dishes and clothing, for newly-settled immigrants.

Nursery school pupils in Jewish Centers Association member centers are baking matzos and holding miniature seders. The JCA reported also that many of the six centers are conducting community services, particularly for single persons, newcomers to the Los Angeles Jewish community and those away from home.

LEGISLATORS WRITE TO SOVIET JEWS

Some 2000 guests are expected Saturday night at the 40th annual “Third Seder” of the Greater New York Histadrut Council in New York. The seder will feature an original Haggadah, “Song of the Valley,” starring Ida Kaminska, former head of the Yiddish Theater in Warsaw. Rep. Edward I. Koch, New York Democrat-Liberal, will be the principal speaker at the event April 1. The International Union of Councils for Soviet Jews said it expected to exceed its goal of one million holiday greeting cards to Jews in the Soviet Union. Si Frumkin of Los Angeles, a UCSJ vice-chairman, reported that more than 600,000 greeting cards had been mailed to Soviet Jews since February of 1971.

In Washington, Rep. Florence P. Dwyer (R. N.J.) said she had joined with a number of Senators and Representatives in personally writing to Soviet Jews and sending them Jewish religious publications in Russian and Hebrew languages. The Washington Council for Soviet Jewry said that the legislators included Senators Harrison A. Williams Jr. (D. N.J.), Edward J. Gurney (R. Fla.), Vance Hartke (D. Ind.), Roman L. Hruska (R. Neb.), John G. Tower (R. Texas), James L. Buckley (Cons.-R. N.Y.), and Representatives Shirley Chisholm (D.N.Y.) and Hugh J. Carey (D.N.Y.)

The Judaic Heritage Society of New York said it was reviving this year a centuries-old tradition of sterling silver family Passover plates to be handed down from generation to generation. A 1972 Passover plate by Chaim Gross is the first in this annual series, officials said. The edition is limited to 5000, reserved mainly for Society subscribers. The B’nai B’rith in Montreal announced that volunteers from its lodges and chapters have been packaging and delivering Passover food baskets to more than 500 needy families.