Veteran leaders of the Passover meal offer hints for an interactive family experience.
04/04/2012
Mandarin Ice Cubes And Cups Of Tomato Juice
Sharon Richter, Special to the Jewish Week
Running from store to store for the various food items I need for the seders, shopping, cooking and cleaning, I try hard to not lose sight of the biblical obligation to teach my children about the story of Pesach.
The Jewish Week asked readers to share their unique Passover memories. Here are their stories.
Sharon Richter
Special to the Jewish Week
04/04/2012
A Seder In Freedom
Jeanne Dortort Schwartz
I was the first person in my family born in this country; my grandparents were born in Poland. I heard so many stories about what happened in Poland, the atrocities.
In1924, at 7, I vividly remember my first seder — in a second-floor apartment on Clinton Street on the Lower East Side. The apartment was on the first floor, with one window in the rear of the building, a coal stove, an icebox, and one toilet for four apartments.
Workers’ rights join other social issues symbolized by food items at Passover.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
03/27/2012
The pre-Passover shopping list of Rabbi Paula Marcus is growing this year.
A pulpit rabbi in California, she will buy the standard items this week: some kosher food, some boxes of matzah, some bottles of wine. And one non-standard item: a tomato.
The tomato is for her seder plate, not for a recipe.
The Jewish Week asked readers to share their unique Passover memories. From Grossinger’s to revolutionary Bogotá to Forest Hills, here are their tales.
03/27/2012
Resorting to a Questionable Song
My first seder, one I would never forget, was celebrated as an 8-year-old at Grossinger’s in 1945. My mother, Karla, a cousin by marriage to the famous Jennie Grossinger, and I had recently moved to the New York area from Los Angeles, where I had attended (I still don’t know why) Christian Science Sunday school.
For participants in a deaf seder, signing is the norm and no one feels like an outsider.
Yehoshua Soudakoff
Special to The Jewish Week
03/27/2012
I’ve never heard the Passover Haggadah. I’ve heard of it, of course, but never heard it, the actual words.
Like the rest of my family and the guests seated around our seder table every year, we all are deaf. With 40 to 50 guests joining us for the two seder nights at our house, the atmosphere is always casual, the dress informal (except perhaps for my suit and matching black hat); almost everyone knows each other. We come together to celebrate the Jewish holiday of liberation.
When ‘Historia’ and ‘Politica’ take seats at the table.
Cynthia Ozick
Special To The Jewish Week
03/27/2012
Always, despite the children’s hilarity and the happy anticipation of the feast, there comes to the seder a palpable and bitterly unsmiling Guest. Sometimes she is aged and hoary, and sometimes far younger, as ruddy-faced as freshly spilled blood. Most often she is the querulous hag who has attended the seder for centuries; her name is Historia. But when she is newly arrived, and insinuates herself among the grownups in her torn dress smelling of gunpowder, or sticky with plastic explosive, she is called Politica.
New Haggadahs for an old story boast hip lit and Ethiopian drama.
Steve Lipman
Staff Writer
03/20/2012
New American Haggadah. Edited by Jonathan Safran Foer, with a new translation by Nathan Englander. (Little, Brown and Company, $29.99)
Sharing the Journey: The Haggadah for the Contemporary Family. Alan Yoffie, illustrations by Mark Podwal. (Central Conference of American Rabbis, $18)
The Old Master Haggadah. Illustrations by Rembrandt and other artists. (Limited edition, published by Mark Fisch, $45, available at Michael Shamasky Booksellers and artbooks.com)
Tips and tricks on how to make the cosmopolitan treats in your own kitchen.
Amy Spiro
Special to the Jewish Week
03/20/2012
Move over cupcakes, there is a new, and sweet, trend in town. What first exploded in the bakeries of France centuries ago, has, in recent years, landed on the shores of the U.S. and taken off like, well, macaroons at Passover time. In every conceivable color and flavor, French macarons (not to be confused with the traditional Passover dessert macaroons) are now popping up in bakeries across the country, on the covers of magazines and on television.
Forget heavy or light. Matzah ball varieties — from spicy to sweet to stuffed — provide plenty of options.
Amy Spiro
Special to the Jewish Week
03/20/2012
There are a lot of important considerations when it comes to Passover. Red wine or white? Hand-baked or machine-made matzah? Streit’s or Manischewitz macaroons?
But one of the top considerations in every household before the seder is this: Should matzah balls be heavy or light? This year though, you may want to start asking more questions. Like spicy or plain? Whole wheat or regular? Stuffed or unstuffed? With so many options, any number of kneidl varieties could grace your seder table.
