Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 9, 1990 TAG: 9004070166
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In the traditional Passover meal or seder, the celebrants are obliged to consider that ancient event in the present tense - as if they were actual participants, newly freed from oppression.
As the weeklong celebration begins at sundown today, Jews around the world also will be celebrating a contemporary exodus. This time it is from the Soviet Union and the destination - for two families - will be the Roanoke Valley.
The paperwork is still incomplete and details are scant, but the Roanoke Jewish Community Council has agreed to take the responsibility for resettling the families, Ann Penn said.
Penn, a spokeswoman for the council, said the international resettlement program is being sponsored by the Council of Jewish Federations and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Although there are still lots of questions about who the families will be, where they will live, how they will eat and where they will work, there is some urgency to the preparations.
The resettlement is expected before the end of June, Penn said, because many Soviet Jews are in temporary refugee centers in Europe awaiting permanent placement. They face deportation back to the Soviet Union if homes are not found for them.
The United States has agreed to allow the resettlement of 40,000 Soviet Jews this year, but only 32,000 will be eligible for government aid, such as food stamps or Medicaid.
The families coming to Roanoke will be among the 8,000 not eligible for that assistance in their first year here, Penn said, so the Roanoke Valley Jewish community has accepted the responsibility of providing whatever assistance is needed.
Committees have been or will be formed, Penn said, concerned with the families' "immediate needs, such as housing and household goods," and with English-language training and job hunting as they become necessary.
After a year, the family members can apply for resident-alien status and will be eligible for government social ser- 3 1 PASSOVER Passover vices.
Anyone interesting in providing assistance to the two Soviet families may contact Dr. Joseph Penn, the president of the Roanoke Jewish Community Council, after 6 p.m. at 989-8061.
The celebration of Passover has always been a process of "becoming part of history projected into the future," Rabbi Jerome Fox said.
"The idea is to make the Passover seder and the holiday as a whole relevant," said Fox, rabbi at Roanoke's Beth Israel synagogue, a Conservative congregation. That includes seeing contemporary events in terms of the Passover event.
Haggadahs - books or booklets describing the ritual for the seder - have reflected any number of modern-day concerns, Rabbi Frank Muller said. Those include race relations, the Holocaust, Arab-Israeli relations and the like.
Muller, rabbi of the Reform congregation at Temple Emanuel, said he will use a just-released Haggadah specifically celebrating the new freedom of Soviet Jews in a community seder at the Temple tonight.
Prepared by the United Jewish Appeal Rabbinic Cabinet and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, it "is dedicated to this miraculous extension of the ancient process initiated by God and Moses," its introduction says.
Fox included excerpts from that Haggadah in a pre-Passover newsletter to members of his congregation for those who wished to include elements from it in seders in their homes.
Fox encourages members of his congregation to participate in at least one seder for the holiday, although many will celebrate the second night as well, and he emphasizes the family nature of the celebration.
He said he asks members of his congregation to invite single people and small families to join larger families for a seder.
Muller likens Passover, probably the most widely observed Jewish holiday, to Thanksgiving in the sense that it encourages family reunions while "celebrating the most meaningful historical event in Judaism."
Nonetheless, Muller pointed out, it can be celebrated by single people alone as well.
There also are Haggadahs that emphasize the themes of liberation and redemption without specifically mentioning God, he said, so that "just about everybody has some kind of seder," including the non-religious Jew.
A number of Christian churches also ask the rabbis to lead Passover seders for them each year.
by CNB