FEAST OF PASSOVER
OBSERVED BY JEWS.
ORTHODOX CHURCH WILL FAST
AND PRAY FOR SEVEN DAYS.
Local Celebration Is in Accordance
With Custom That Has Been Fol-
lowed for Thirty Centuries.
What It Means.
At sunset yesterday evening the orthodox Jews of Kansas City sat down to the tables in their respective homes to observe the anniversary of the "Feast of the Passover," a custom followed in Jewish homes for more than thirty centuries, conducted in accordance with the command as set forth in the twelfth chapter of Exodus and after the manner of the feast immortalized nineteen centuries ago when Christ and his disciples partook of the "Last Supper."
The Feast of Passover is a celebration in remembrance of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. It symbolizes their freedom form the oppression of those old days. The ceremony lasts seven days, beginning at sundown on the Monday preceding Easter Sunday and ending at sundown on Easter day.
The feast which begins at sundown is called the "seter" and is observed the first and second days of the Passover. At this time all of the good things in the Jewish culinary category are brought to the table. The supper is preceded, anteceded and interspersed with prayers which, according to custom, recall the slavery days in Egypt. The unleavened bread and wine of the Christian communion are a part of the ceremony of this feast.
According to the ancient Jewish calendar the days began and ended with the sinking of the sun and all rites and feasts commenced just as the sun disappeared below the horizon. During the entire seven days the Jews eat only unleavened bread.
At 10 o'clock this morning services will be held at Bnai Judah temple, Flora avenue and Linwood boulevard, when Rabbi Harry H. Mayer will preach the sermon, taking for his subject "The Festive Symbols."
The Festive Symbols, as explained by Rev. Mayer, are the egg, which symbolizes immortality and the rebirth of year or spring, according to the ancient Jewish folk lore; bitter herbs, the reminder of the servitude and oppression of the Jews in Egypt and the unleavened bread, symbolizing the hurried departure of the Jews from the hated country, they having had not time to put leavening in the bread for the feast. The first and last days of the Passover are holy days.
Services will begin at Keneseth Israel temple, 1425 Locust street, at 8:30 o'clock this morning and will continue until noon, Rabbi Max Lieberman presiding.
