A Passover Message from the Workers Circle CEO Ann Toback

As we prepare to celebrate Passover, its timeless refrain of freedom from oppression echoes across the millennia from the ancient world to our own. Many of us have our own families’ histories of breaking free from tyrannical power, journeying to these shores, and laboring to build “a better and more beautiful world for all.”

In the early decades of the 20th century, Workers Circle families gathered for a grand Third Seder, a celebration that revolved around our commitments to social justice and Yiddish culture which embodied the struggle and sacrifice it takes to transform our world. We sang the Partisan Hymn and drew strength from songs and poetry as we marked Passover together in this new “promised land.”

Today, the spirit of the Third Seder is needed more than ever in our country as we face challenges to democracy and human equality on every front. And so we offer this brief resource and observance that you can incorporate into your family’s Passover celebration.

We also warmly invite you to join the Workers Circle community and the Congress for Jewish Culture at an online participatory Third Seder solely in Yiddish, on Sunday, April 9 at 1:00 PM ET. English translation will not be provided. During this Yiddish-language Seder, we will be reading and singing from our community’s historic Arbeter Ring Driter Seder Yiddish Hagode.

I wish everyone a meaningful holiday and a zisn Peysakh!