U.S. Jews Urged to Include Statement on Soviet Jewry at Seder

A call to all American Jews to include an additional statement on the plight of Soviet Jews in the Seder service this year was issued here today by the American Jewish Conference on Soviet Jewry. The statement informs the Soviet Jews that “they have not been forgotten” and that American Jewry “shall be their voice” in arousing the conscience of the world to “the injustice imposed on Soviet Jews.” American Jewry is also urged to add an extra “matzoh of oppression” to the Seder service as a symbol of remembrance in behalf of Russian Jewry.

Representing twenty-four national religious and secular Jewish organizations, on matters pertaining to the elimination of injustices imposed upon Soviet Jewry, the Conference suggests the reading of the statement “when distributing the matzoh after the blessing over the matzoh.” The reader of the Haggadah — traditional Passover service read with the Passover dinner — is requested to “lift a matzoh, set it aside and say:

“We set aside this ‘lechem oni’ — this matzoh of oppression — to remember the three million Jews of the Soviet Union. Most of them cannot have matzoh on their Seder tables tonight. Conceive of Passover without matzoh — without that visible reminder of our flight from slavery.

“Think of Soviet Jews! They cannot learn of their Jewish past and hand it down to their children. They cannot learn the languages of their fathers and hand them down to their children. They cannot teach their children to be their teachers, their rabbis. They can only sit in silence and become invisible. We shall be their voice, and our voices shall be joined by thousands of men of conscience aroused by the injustice imposed on Soviet Jews. Then shall they know that they have not been forgotten, and they that sit in darkness shall yet see a great light. “