The Spirit of Passover Lifts 20,000 at Festival

When Sandy Abouaf traveled to the Leningrad last summer and stayed with a Jewish family that had been refused permission to emigrate to Israel, she said she learned first-hand the value of freedom.

So last fall, Abouaf and a friend, Gladys Sturman, began making telephone calls to organize Exodus ‘86, a celebration of freedom that drew more than 20,000 people Sunday to Los Angeles Pierce College.

“This is the largest gathering of Jews in the San Fernando Valley in 15 years,” said Abouaf, a Northridge resident, who received help from the Valley branch of the Jewish Federation Council and the West Valley Kehillah in contacting temples and other groups.

Sturman, who served as co-chairman of the festival, expressed surprise at the large turnout. “We were praying for 10,000 and expecting 5,000,” she said.

The festival was held 10 days before Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the escape of Jews from Egypt in the 12th Century BC, to remind Americans of Jews abroad who are not free to practice their religion, Abouaf said.

“We are all hoping for a second exodus for Jews in the Soviet Union, Syria, Ethiopia and Lebanon,” she said.

To that end, volunteers collected signatures on an 86-foot-long petition that Abouaf will present Tuesday to the Soviet consul in San Francisco. “Essentially, the petition says, ‘Let my people go,’ ” Abouaf said.

Included among the signers, according to Abouaf, are members of the state Legislature, the Los Angeles City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley, who attended the festival. Abouaf said she will visit Sacramento today to secure the signature of Gov. George Deukmejian.

To carry the message of freedom, a group of runners relayed a lighted torch 30 miles through the San Fernando Valley, finishing at Pierce College and using the flame to light a 15-foot-high menorah.

Festival organizers said they hope the large turnout will be the beginning of a closer sense of community among the estimated 200,000 Jews living in the San Fernando Valley.

“The Jewish community here tends to be very fragmented,” Sturman said. “About 80% of the Jews in the Valley aren’t affiliated with any organization, so we’re hoping that with the organizations represented here they can at least learn about what is available.”

Among the speakers at the festival was Eliahu Essas, a mathematician and refusenik leader released in January from the Soviet Union, who now lives in Jerusalem. Booths manned by Jewish service and religious groups sold food, drinks, and offered information on subjects from children’s camps to kibbutzim. A booth called “Ask the Rabbi” offered free advice from Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed rabbis.

Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom, an Orthodox rabbi affiliated with the Beit Hamidrash synagogue in Woodland Hills, said most of the questions posed to him were about proper foods for the upcoming Passover Seder, the traditional meal. Larger questions were not asked, he said, because “people probably felt a little uncomfortable asking about the meaning of life in what is essentially a marketplace atmosphere.”

Abouaf said she and other festival organizers hope to hold a second event next year.