Passover 5775

Vol. LXIX No. 14 | 13 Nisan, 5775April 2, 2015 | njjewishnews.com

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A father’s memory is an inspiration to

serve — and to smileRabbi Debra Orenstein

Special to NJ Jewish News

On Passover, among other Jew-ish holidays, we recite Yizkor to honor the memory of those who

have died and, equally, to affirm and maintain our connection to them. Like many Jews, I treasure the opportunity offered by Yizkor to share my memo-ries and my loss with my community.

But, as anyone who has ever lost a close relative can tell you, you don’t need a formal ritual to remember.

The season itself is a reminder. If you had a relative who led the seder — or cooked for the seder, or had even a minor annual role at the seder — then memories will inevitably come at this time of year. You don’t have to wait for Yizkor.

My dad, Rabbi Jehiel Orenstein, was rabbi and then rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth El in South Orange. He led seders. He led Yizkor. But I find myself thinking of him, as Passover approaches, for reasons that are both more sublime — and more ridiculous — than those.

First, the sublime: My dad had a profound love for freedom. He was an advocate for the release of Soviet Jews, travelling with my mother to Soviet Russia in 1959 (on their hon-eymoon!) and again in the ’70s and ’80s, bearing Jewish books and other contraband. For my dad, “freedom” wasn’t achieved merely by getting Jews out of Russia. He believed, as the Haggada teaches, that ignorance of God is a kind of bondage, and so he

devoted himself to the Jewish educa-tion of Russian emigres.

In the 1990s, my father learned about a man from Cameroon seeking political asylum because he had been thrown in jail and tortured for criti-cizing the government. Not only did my parents invite this man, Christo-phe Dosat, into their home, my father attended every hearing and deposition with him. Today, he is an American citizen.

See Father page 30

Seder startersHERE ARE a few activities to do at the seder to help you raise awareness of modern slavery; more ideas are available at freetheslaves.net/Judaism.• Eat an extra “dose” of maror (bitter herbs) because of the bitterness of slavery that persists in the world.• Put a padlock on your seder plate, and when the inevitable questions come, read the “modern slavery fact sheet” available at freetheslaves.net and discuss the commandment to “love the stranger, for you were strang-ers in the land of Egypt.”• Set an extra place setting at your seder table, and leave an empty chair, for a person who is not yet free but will, we hope, be able to celebrate freedom next year. • Brainstorm around the table: What are 10 plagues of slavery and what are 10 miracles of freedom?• Serve fair-trade chocolates for dessert and sing the “Dayenu Fair Trade” song. Sung to the familiar “Dayenu” melody, it supplies new words in rhyming English about slavery in the chocolate trade. • Give half the money you planned to spend on afikoman presents to Free the Slaves (freetheslaves.net/Judaism).

Rabbi Jehiel Orenstein


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Passover

P assover is one of the most social Jewish holidays, with multiple generations getting together to

celebrate. It can also be one of the most labor-intensive, for those Jews who kasher their kitchens for Pass-over, changing dishes, lining counters with foil, stocking up on special foods, and preparing the many festive meals for friends and relatives.

Due to this, companies offer-ing kosher for Passover getaways, in which everything is taken care of for the eight-day festival, have become increasingly popular. Options range from stays in Arizona, Florida, Cali-fornia, the Catskills, and Cape Cod, to Aruba, Mexico, France, Italy, Israel, and more.

Abby Polin of Skokie, Ill., is a sin-gle parent who works two jobs, as a vice president of mortgage lend-ing and cofounder of figvine.com, a website that brings together small service providers and users. The ease of a Passover vacation is immensely appealing. “We’ve been going away for Pesach for about 13 years. We’ve gone to the hotels in Florida, gone to Israel a few times. My family is spread out all over, and it’s such a nice time to get together,” she says. “You don’t really have to prep the house.”

Florida is where the Passover vaca-tions started. According to Robert Frucher, managing director of Leisure Time Tours, his father Daniel Frucher was the first to kasherize a nonkosher hotel for Passover, in 1972. Before that, the only options were kosher hotels in Miami and the Catskills. “These weren’t great hotels,” Frucher says. “Passover was their biggest piece of business all year. My father saw the need, specifically in Miami Beach. The demand was so big even for the lousy kosher hotels, they were actually housing people across the street and

feeding them in the lobby, putting up tables everywhere.”

Leisure Time’s first venture was at an upscale property in Miami Beach, with spaces for about 400 people, and they sold out in six weeks. Today the company runs Passover getaways in five hotels, with programs serving 450 to 1300 people.

Raphi Bloom, London-based owner and sales director of the Jew-ish travel website TotallyJewishTravel.com, notes that this year, “there are 135 disparate Pesach hotels around the world.” He’s been running the site for a dozen years. The Passover busi-ness, he says, “has grown and grown and grown. It’s seen hard times, but this year it seems to have really weath-ered the economic downturn. You’re seeing far more new hotels coming in terms of Pesach.”

A typical Passover getaway is all-inclusive, for 9 nights. They are not cheap; while some start at about $1600 per adult, many are $3500 and up, depending on the accommoda-tions. As Frucher says, “What’s hap-pened with Passover programs, it’s the cruise ship concept on land.” They include three meals a day, plus a “tea room”—where food is always avail-able. There are daily services (usually Orthodox), plus lectures, study ses-sions, day camps for kids, teen pro-grams, and excursions.

“We went to the Hoover Dam, and to the Strip,” says Yussie Awend-stern, a financial advisor from Valley Stream, N.Y. One of his daughters lives in California, and they meet in Lake Las Vegas for a program run by World Wide Kosher Tours. “What I really like is spending time with my daughter and seven grandchildren.”

A relaxed time with family is the goal for Camp Ramah Darom in Clay-ton, Georgia, which started offering a

Matza breakLisë Stern

JointMedia News Service

Passover getaways are becoming an increasingly popular way to enjoy the holiday.

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PassoverPassover retreat for about 300 people in 2002. The camp itself was built in 1997. CEO Fred Levick says the facility was “built to accommodate groups year-round. One of the first things we focused on was Passover. We’re primarily in the camping business, and have the experience of creating communal events, which are fun and educational. This seemed like a great opportunity for families.”

This April, Polin, her children, and parents are traveling from Chicago to Camp Ramah Darom to celebrate Passover with her brother from Israel and sister from Massachusetts. “It’s a nice time that the family could all be together, and great for all the grandkids to spend with their cousins,” she says. “It’s not just about the food and going away, it’s being able to do activities in a kosher for Passover setting. It’s not just a getaway, but incorporates the whole Jewish holiday.”

Passover getaways tend to fill up quickly these days, especially if you need blocks of rooms. Many are full already, but the following can give you an idea of the variety of programs available. Most pro-grams offer options for the whole holiday, or for the first half or second half. Unless otherwise noted, rates are per person, and do not include tax and gratuities, which usually are about 25 percent.

*TotallyJewishTravel (totallyjewishtravel.com) features descriptions of over a hundred Passover programs around the world, and is a great resource.

*Afikomen Tours (afikomantours.com) is hosted by Leah and Booky Erblich, a former cantor. This year, they’re running a program at the Westin Resort & Casino in Aruba. Erblich says they’ll spend “a few years in one location, a few years in another location,” because, with a 75 percent return rate, “customers like a change.” The program is glatt kosher and halav yisroel, but Erblich says those who attend are “the rainbow collation: black hats, green berets, blue yarmulkes, no yarmulkes. Nobody is judgmental on anyone else’s denomination, if you will.” Rates start at $3299 per adult.

*Camp Ramah Darom (mypassovervacation.

com) has been operating at the Ramah camp in the north Georgia mountains for a decade. This is a more rustic getaway, although attendees inter-viewed all deem the food 5 star quality (no camp meals here). Accommodations include both weath-erized cabins and hotel rooms, and services are egalitarian and participatory. Rates start at $1575 per adult.

*Leisure Time Tours (leisurett.com), the grand-father of Passover escapes, has been hosting these vacations since 1972. They now offer choices in Florida (Boca Raton Resort & Spa and the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach), Arizona (the Bilt-more in Phoenix), New York (Rye Town Hilton in Westchester), and Italy (Hotel Excelsior in Venice). Starting prices range from $2595 to $4299.

*Pesach in New England (pesachinnewen-gland.com), a new kid on the getaway block, is the brainchild of Bruce Backman. This is the first year he’s offering Passover in Cape Cod, at the luxu-rious Ocean Edge Resort and Golf Club in Brew-ster, Mass., catered by Greenwald caterers. “The whole New England market is very underserved,” he says. He also wanted to offer a driving distance destination for those in the New York area. “I felt that there was a market for people who wanted to go somewhere close to home. It’s a very beautiful property.” Rates start at $6250 for two adults, gra-tuities included. n

I t’s Shabbat afternoon and the girls are putting on a beauty pageant in our living room. To their eight-,

six-, four-, and one-year-old minds, it doesn’t take much imagination to see our modest floor as a full-fledged stage, red carpet and all. The TV has been off for the past 20 hours, in accordance with Orthodox custom.

It looks like the lazy Shabbat after-noons of so many observant Jewish families, but then I do a quick check on my phone to see when Shabbat is over. My phone tells me we have a half hour more to go. I breathe a sigh of relief.

I was once observant — if not unhappily, then begrudgingly. But a year and a half ago, my increasing apathy toward the Orthodox lifestyle turned to antipathy and I stopped practicing. This naturally created an imbalance, for we had specifically built our family around a lifestyle that requires intensive participation from all parties. And here I was, just recus-ing myself.

I remember the moment my eldest beauty queen caught me on the com-puter on a Friday night, which caused her to confront Rikki, which resulted in a much-needed family conversation

on the couch.“Do you remember Uncle Henry?

He’s not frum but he loves us any-ways and he let us keep Shabbat in his house. Tatty is also not frum like Uncle Henry.”

I sat by quietly while my wife said these scary words to our two eldest Beauty Queens, then seven and five.

“But Tatty used to be frum, right?” BQ 1 asked.

“Yes, but he’s not anymore.” Rikki paused. “But he still loves us, and he’s still the same Tatty you have always loved.”

The kids seemed to be satisfied with this, though it was clear that they were still somewhat confused. And I can’t blame them: This new family arrange-ment is different than any they were familiar with, to be sure.

Many friends and acquaintances have told us they feel that our mar-riage could no longer work, and took strong positions against our marriage. But Rikki and I felt differently and we persevered. Setting out on this new life was almost like getting married all over again; we had to relearn to respect each other and each other’s choices.

Growing up in a yeshivish home,

Rikki was taught that it was her hus-band’s religious devotions that would earn her a place in the world to come. Now Rikki has learned to respect her own religious instincts. She’s learned that she could attend shul and pray, that she could make kiddush on Shab-bat, even with me, her husband, at the table. And I learned that although I don’t believe anyone’s listening on the other end, I could still daven a bit when I take my kids to shul.

I also learned that families are whatever you make them. During this period of change, I found myself lis-tening to an episode of “This Ameri-can Life” called “Red State Blue State.” The episode talked about families torn apart by differing opinions on poli-tics and each person’s wish that they weren’t so torn apart by it. The stories spoke directly to our situation, and I didn’t want to end up like those fam-ilies where ideas take precedence over family ties.

Recently we’ve begun the arduous preparations for Passover that entails rigorous cleaning, scrubbing, vacuum-ing, and a general complete overhaul of house and home.

“Mommy, why can’t we eat cha-metz (leavened bread) on Pesach?” asked Beauty Queen two.

“Because when Pharaoh finally decided to allow the yidden [Jewish

people] to leave Mitzrayim [Egypt], they were in the middle of baking their laffas and Pharaoh didn’t give them time to finish baking them. They had to run so fast that the laffas turned to matzah,” I answered helpfully, receiv-ing a grateful look from Rikki, grateful that I didn’t throw much snark into my response as I might if my kids were not in earshot.

But of course she still worries. Though I wasn’t particularly enthu-siastic for Passover before I finally dropped observance, now Rikki won-ders how she can rely on me to help clean, participate in bedikat chametz (search for leavened bread) and make a seder worth looking forward to when I don’t even believe the stories Passover celebrates anymore?

I reassure her it’ll be a beautiful Passover nonetheless, and I won’t be kvetching too much about my duties. I realize now that I’ll be doing it for my family instead of for God. Because my family is something I’ll never stop believing in.

Eli Mandel is a graduate of Pupa cheder in Monsey, NY, the Telz yeshiva and Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is now recovering from ultra-Orthodoxy with his wife and four daughters in Kauneo-nga Lake, NY. When he’s not riding his motorcycle, he practices accounting as a form of tikkun olam.


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Rabbi Joshua M. Z. StantonCharles Oransky, President

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Congregation B’nai Jeshurun 1025 South Orange Avenue Short Hills, NJ 07078 973 379 1555 www.tbj.org







Leaving Orthodoxy, but not my familyEli Mandel

Kveller via JTA

Passover

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Passover

E L AL Israel Airl ines is helping passengers celebrate Passover with family and friends by add-

ing flights worldwide to accommo-date this year’s holiday traffic. As the world’s only kosher airline, EL AL will serve Passover meals in accordance with strict Jewish laws under Rabbinic supervision.

EL AL is making every effort to accommodate the high demand of pas-sengers travelling to Israel between Saturday evening, March 28 and Thurs-day, April 2. During this period, the EL AL flight schedule from North Amer-ica to Israel will offer 21 flights from New York (JFK/Newark), five from Los Angeles and four from Toronto (all non-stops).

Catering for EL AL flights departing Israel are overseen by award-winning chef and TV personality Chef Moshe Segev who has provided his favorite kosher recipes for Passover:

Chraime Fish

Three pieces of fish fillets (salmon/Locus/any other preferred fish)1/2 cup olive oilseven red peppers (slim slices)Nine sweet tomatoes, peeled and sliced into cubesNine cloves garlic, choppedOne cup chopped corianderOne cup chopped parsleyOne heaping Tbsp. moroccan paprika One heaping Tbsp. saltOne tsp. turmericOne tsp. white pepperTwo cups waterhandful of toasted pine nuts

Heat a flat wide pot with olive oil (high

heat); Mix peppers and garlic. Add tomatoes and cook until peppers are soft. Add spices. Mix well and add 3/4 of the herbs. Place fish carefully near each other, pour water and cook for 20 minutes.

On every fish sprinkle remaining herbs. Cover pot and continue cooking for 10 more minutes.

OraNge sOup

Three cups pumpkinsTwo cups sweet potatoesOne carrotsix cups water (Chef recommends tasting the soup at the end and add some more hot water, for those who prefer thinner soup)salt and ground white pepper

Cut the vegetables into 2 x 2 centime-ters cubes. Steam the vegetables in a pot with a little butter. Add water, cover pot and cook until vegetables are com-pletely soft. Drain vegetables and keep cooking water aside. Put the cooked vegetables in a blender and blend it until the texture is smooth. Taste the soup and add salt and pepper, as much as you want (Chef recommends adding a lot of pepper, to balance the sweet potato sweetness). If the soup is too thick, add some of the cooking water saved earlier, until you will receive the right texture.

For more information and to book flights, visit elal.com or call EL AL at 800-223-6700 or contact any travel agent. Learn more about special pro-motions as well as activities, special events and useful travel tips to Israel, plus more, by joining the airline on Facebook (ELALIsraelAirlinesUSA) and Twitter (@ELALUSA).

From EL AL Israel, recipes to elevate your holiday table

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hadassah.org HADASSAH THE WOMEN’S ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA, INC.©2015 Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. Hadassah is a registered trademark of Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. F or the past three years,

Pres ident Obama and his family have hosted a

Passover Seder in the White House for a select group of invited guests, both Jewish and non-Jewish. A Maxwell House Haggada — probably the most widely used Passover Seder text among American Jews — was placed at each table.

The Haggada (the Hebrew word means “telling”) has a venerable and remarkably var-ied history, which long pre-cedes the often wine-splotched classic published by the coffee maker. Scholars have identi-fied more than 3,500 extant editions and there is hardly a Jewish community in the world that has not produced its own Haggada. Although the earliest manuscripts have been lost, the oldest complete text was found in a prayer book compiled by the philosopher and rabbinic scholar Saadia Gaon during the 10th century.

The Haggada reportedly emerged as an indepen-dent volume during the 15th century. Some schol-

ars speculated about the origins of an edition that was pub-lished in Guadalajara, Spain in 1482, but the publication loca-tion has never been confirmed nor has it been definitively established as the first separate-ly-published Haggada.

In 1486, the Soncinos, a noted Italian Jewish family of printers, published a sid-dur to which a Haggada was bound. Although it is not known whether such binding was common during this time, some historians consider this Soncino volume a separate and independent work.

The history of Haggadas and the Soncino edition is recounted in an erudite and elegant 1975 volume entitled Haggadah and History. Written by the late Harvard professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, this work traces the evolution of

this classic Passover text, which reflects the varie-gated and tumultuous history of the Jewish people.

Most of this nearly 500-page work contains reprinted Haggada pages from around the world.

Passover

A page reprinted from a Bombay Haggada written in the Marathi language.

Credit: Reprinted from “Haggadahand History” by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Jewish Publication Society of America, 1975

Long before the Maxwell House Haggada

Donald AltschillerJointMedia News Service


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PassoverThe range of publishing locations and languages employed is remarkable: a Poona, India, text was published in the Indian language Marathi; the Istanbul, Turkey, edition is bilingual, written in Ladino and Hebrew; a Tel Aviv Haggada in Hebrew was produced in pre-state Palestine. Also depicted is an unusual item: a parody of the Haggada. Pub-lished in Odessa, Russia, in 1885, this text used the Four Questions to highlight the poor pay and treat-ment of east European elementary school teachers, comparing their plight to that of Israelite slaves in Egypt!

Yerushalmi notes that only 25 Haggadas were published during the sixteenth century, but the production increased to 234 in the eighteenth cen-tury and more than 1200 during the nineteenth. Although this Passover text has been published for more than 600 years, the majority of individual edi-tions were issued in the last century. Early Hagga-das featured hand-drawn illustrations and in more recent times, pictures were inserted to stimulate the “curiosity of the children…[and served] as a lively medium of visual instruction, much like today’s picture books,” Yerushalmi writes.

The Sarajevo Haggada is the most famous such work, a beautifully illustrated text originating in

Barcelona in the 14th century, smuggled out of Spain during the Inquisition, transported to Italy and eventually ending up in the former Yugoslavia. Unlike many Jews, the Sarajevo Haggada somehow survived the Nazi onslaught. The remarkable story of its survival has been evocatively told in the novel People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, and in a network television documentary.

The Birds’ Head Haggadah, the oldest surviving Ashkenazi illuminated manuscript, was produced in Germany during the 14th century. This strik-ingly beautiful volume derives its name from the birdlike human figures depicted in the margins. Scholars claim that this animal motif is related to the Second Commandment that prohibits the cre-ation of graven images. In lieu of drawing a human figure, the volume depicts distorted heads of birds, often wearing a headpiece and other garments.

The Sarajevo Haggadah is permanently dis-played in the National Museum of Bosnia and Her-zegovina while the Birds’ Head Haggadah is found in the Israel Museum. Unlike the ever present and dependable Maxwell House haggadah found at many Seders, these precious volumes are securely spared from matzo crumbs, spilled wine and drip-pings of horse radish. n

T e l l o u r a d v e r t i s e r s y o u s a w t h e m

i n t h e J e w i s h N e w s .

To my dad, “Let my people go” was not just a Bible verse or a slogan. It was a moral demand against Pha-raohs of every description, on behalf of people from every background.

Since my dad died, I have devoted most of my social justice work to free-ing slaves. The latest estimate is that there are approximately 30 million slaves working throughout the world, with about 60,000 (still, shockingly) in the United States. In March, in col-laboration with the organization Free the Slaves, I launched the Judaism & Modern Slavery Project. It consists of two parts: • Seder Starters: readings and activ-ities for your seder to help you raise awareness of modern slaves and add meaning to your celebration.• The Passover & Modern Slavery Curriculum: lessons for every age — from kindergartners through adults.

Both resources are free and down-loadable at freetheslaves.net/Judaism.

The goal is to help Jews connect the story of our enslavement and lib-eration to the plight — and hopes for freedom — of slaves today.

It was only after months of work on this project that it dawned on me how much my father’s love of freedom had inspired it. Those who remember my father will recall that he was agreeable, easy-going, and funny. But when peo-ple were not free, he became insistent, laser-focused, and serious. He refused to “stand idly by” (Leviticus 19:16). On the cover page of the “Judaism & Modern Slavery Curriculum,” you can see a brief, inadequate dedication: “In memory of Rabbi Jehiel Oren-stein.”

And now, the ridiculous: Some-times, it is the littlest things that remind us of the people we love. Peo-ple do so many remarkable things in a lifetime, but it’s often the things that are decidedly not remarkable that trig-ger a rush of feeling or memory.

Not long after deciding to dedicate the slavery curriculum to my dad, I was finding it hard to unwind after a long day. I turned on the television and happened on a rerun of Castle. My dad was a fan of the show, which features a writer who shadows a New York City detective. I remember ques-tioning him about his affection for it, because I found it so, well, dumb. I couldn’t take more than a few min-utes of it before leaving the room.

But dumb and mindless were what I was after that night. To my surprise, I wasn’t just nostalgic about the show; I actually liked it. Now that my father is not around to watch it with, it reminds me of him. I see what he saw in it, and I dread the day when I will run out of reruns.

I never would have dreamed that a TV show would be a link between me and my dad. And for a long time, it didn’t occur to me that helping to free slaves was also connecting me, in a much more significant way, to him.

But seder time or Yizkor time — or anytime — the connection is always there.

Rabbi Debra Orenstein, the religious leader at Congregation B’nai Israel in Emerson, is a frequent scholar -in-residence. For all her Passover resources, visit the Holidays page at RabbiDebra.com.


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Three times in the book of Exo-dus and once in Deuteronomy, we are commanded to tell the

master narrative of our people to our children. Sometimes it is because children ask, and we have a responsi-bility as bearers of a legacy to answer. Sometimes children do not ask, and we have to stimulate their curiosity by becoming wonderful storytellers.

The rabbis of the Talmud won-dered why four verses were neces-sary to communicate the obligation at Passover to retell the tale of the Exodus. They concluded that these four verses must represent four dif-ferent kinds of children, offering an educational scale of learning styles or personalities who each must hear the story in his or her own way. Not only do we have to know the story well to tell it; we also need to know our audi-ence well to make sure they hear it.

The best stories are fun to tell and fun to hear. They incorporate all our senses. They offer a range of emotional responses from laughter to tears, and good stories have staying power. They continue to inform our values long after they are shared. The Exo-dus story can be all of that. But most

often, it is none of that. It is told in a tepid and incoherent way, read from a poor English translation without color or charm. It is the weak content warm-up to most family meals, even though it is one of the most observed rituals among American Jews.

It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old. Everyone appreciates a well-told story, so this year, ask yourself: am I doing a good job in the chain of tra-dition at telling the exodus story? Is my Seder fun? Will it be memorable for everyone around the table? If the answer is “not really,” here are a few ways to fulfill the biblical command-ment to tell the story, and the Disney way to make it stick.

Use props: Find objects in your home that tell your family’s Jewish story and put them on the table. Or have every guest bring an object that tells his or her family story.

Decorate the room: Why should anyone sit in a dining room in subur-bia when they could be in downtown ancient Cairo? Try costumes. We even had our kids write and read ancient weather reports. Chances are it’s hot and sunny.

Sing the story with show tunes or

ask the kids to prepare a rap song. Just go online and you’ll find loads of lyr-ics. Here are a few of my top 10:

Sung to the tune of “These are a Few of My Favorite Things”Cleaning and cooking and so many

dishesOut with the hametz, no pasta, no

knishesFish that’s gefillted, horseradish that

stingsThese are a few of our Passover

things.

Sung to the tune of “Maria”Elijah!I just saw the prophet Elijah.And suddenly that nameWill never sound the same to me.Elijah!

Sung to the tune of “Just a Spoon Full of Sugar”Just a tad of haroset helps the bitter

herbsgo down,The bitter herbs go down, the bitter

herbs go down.Just a tad of Charoset helps the bitter

herbsgo down,In the most disguising way.

These are a few of my favorite things to help make Passover a living history lesson and a memorable eve-ning each year. We are a people with no word for history, only memory. We are memory-makers. That is an awe-inspiring responsibility. Let’s do it well on the most important night of our story telling year.

Dr. Erica Brown is the scholar-in- residence at the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Her forthcoming book is Happy Endings: The Fine Art of Dying Well (Simon and Schuster).


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PassoverAdd some girl power

to your sederAvital Norman Nathman

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Whether you weave in one or all of these tips, consider hon-oring the matriarchal roots of

Judaism this Passover with a little girl power fun at your seder this year.*Add an orange and coffee bean to your seder plate. The orange represents both inclusion and solidarity with women and the LGBT community. The coffee bean represents and hon-ors both the bitterness and strength of juggling your work life and family life something we’re pretty sure you can relate to.

*Miriam’s CupIn addition to the traditional cup of Elijah, include Miriam’s Cup and begin your seder by filling it up together. It serves as the symbol of Miriam’s Well the source of water for the Israelites in the desert. Pass the cup around the table and let each guest add a bit of water from his or her own cup, establishing that the seder is an inclu-sive and participatory one. Remind your guests that while we may enjoy drinking our four cups of wine, water is just as important. Like Miriam’s Well, water sustains and nourishes us (and prevents hangovers).

*Lighting candlesCandle lighting has traditionally fallen to women in Jewish practice. Honor this by recognizing that the lighting of candles helps usher light into the darkness and allows us to begin our holidays peacefully.

*The four mothersSpeaking of those four cups of wine, you can note during your seder that some scholars connect the four cups of wine with the four mothers: Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah. After all, the only thing better than one Jewish mother is four.

*The four daughtersWhile we’re familiar with the story of the four sons from the traditional Haggadah, why not also give a nod to the four biblical daughters, a won-derful addition from “A Night To Remember: The Haggadah of Con-temporary Voices,” by Mishael and Noam Zion. The reading shares wis-dom from Miriam, Tamar, Ruth, and “The Beautiful Captive.”

*Wise womenMany songs, poems and stories writ-ten by women are a perfect match for Passover; include them in your seder along the way. Some of my favorites:* Marge Piercy’s poem “Season of the Egg”* Rabbi Rachel Berenblat (aka “The Velveteen Rabbi”) has a poem about what happens after the seder.* Rabbi Jill Hammer’s “Orah Hi,” a feminist version of the traditional end of seder song “Adir Hu.”

Avital Norman Nathman is the editor of The Good Mother Myth: Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality.

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T his Pesach, if your four glasses at the Seder table contain an Israeli red wine, you may be ensuring a clean bill of health.

Research, released by researchers from the Uni-versity of Leeds, UK, reports that resveratrol, a chem-ical found in red wine, may halt Alzheimer’s disease progression.

It is the skins of the grape, left in the juice during fermentation, which cause the red color of the wine and which also give the wine its powerful antioxidant qualities. A glass of red wine at meal times has been demonstrated to reduce the levels of oxidised bad cholesterol in the bloodstream and thus the potential for developing atherosclerosis.

Recently, it was discovered that Israeli wine had five times the amount of a potent antioxidant than the relative UK wine studied. The study suggests that i t may be the high levels of sunlight which aids antioxidant production in the grapes grown in Israel.

“ W e a r e incredibly lucky here in Israel,” e x p l a i n e d Y ae l Ga i o f t h e G o l a n Heights Win-e r y . “ O u r vineyards are spread across the Golan at vary ing a l t i -t u d e s a n d geographical c o n d i t i o n s . We have per-f e c t e d t h e latest technol-ogy to allow us to exploit the fantastic sunshine and variety of temperatures available to us.”

There are now more Israeli wines on the market than ever before and there has been a host of Israeli red wines wining international prizes this past year, including the 2008 Yarden Cabernet Sauvignon and the 2009 Galil Mountain Alon which both won awards at the Decanter Awards in London.

The Mount Hermon Red is Israel’s bestselling wine. It is a very affordable, medium bodied and fruity wine making it a great addition to the Seder table.

Whatever Israeli red wine you chose to serve this Pesach, drunk in moderation, it is reassuring to know that this treat may be keeping you healthy in addition to tantalizing the taste buds.

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