Temples to Ask Aid for Europe on Passover

Sermons describing the situation of the Jews in Germany under the Hitler regime, the alarming spread of destitution in thousands of Jewish communities in Eastern and Central Europe and the increasing importance of Palestine, to which large numbers of Jewish refugees from Germany and immigrants from other European countries are flocking, will be preached in many synagogues and temples in the five boroughs during the Passover holidays, it was announced yesterday by I. Edwin Goldwasser, Michael Schaap and Nathan Strauss, co-chairmen of the local campaign of the United Jewish Appeal.

In a joint statement issued by the three local chairmen Friday, they contrasted the coming joyous celebration by the Jews of New York of Passover with the anguish that will mar the celebrations of millions of their brethren overseas.

“In Germany a half million Jews, groaning under the despotism that has robbed them of their human rights, will raise their anguished eyes to us whence comes their only hope,” the statement said. “In Poland, out of its 3,000,000 Jews, vast numbers will have to eat the “bread of charity’ if they are to celebrate this festal period at all.

“In many lands of Europe thousands of Jews, exiled from their German fatherland, will eat the bread of affliction as they bitterly struggle against the adversities that have been their lot these past two years. And in still other European countries, where anti-Semitism is rampant, vast numbers of Jews will wonder, as they celebrate the Passover, what further misery the future has in store for them—will pray that we, the ‘saving remnant of Israel,’ will stand by them as they face their fate.

“The boons of liberty, of equality, of opportunity that are ours will give zest to our own celebration of the Passover. What more fitting celebration, what more worthy, than, in the midst of our own joy, we think of the sorrows of millions of our people suffering such martyrdom?”