Special Holiday Issues

The Seder, Hands On

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:44:00 +0000

Veteran leaders of the Passover meal offer hints for an interactive family experience.

Wednesday, April 4, 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.

A Holiday Of Firsts

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:36:25 +0000

The Jewish Week asked readers to share their unique Passover memories. Here are their stories.

Sharon Richter

Special to the Jewish Week

Wednesday, April 4, 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.

A Seder Among Former Slaves

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:42:35 +0000

A Passover of liberation in the Sudan.

Rabbi Joseph Polak

Special to The Jewish Week

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

A few days before Passover last year, a student found me, a rabbi, doing some last-minute packing.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To the Sudan,” I replied.

A little silence followed, and then she said, “Oh, that’s that new bar in Cambridge, right?”

The Tomato Finds Its Place On The Seder Plate

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:40:00 +0000

Workers’ rights join other social issues symbolized by food items at Passover.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 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.

Seder Stories That Last A Lifetime

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:16:38 +0000

The Jewish Week asked readers to share their unique Passover memories. From Grossinger’s to revolutionary Bogotá to Forest Hills, here are their tales.

Tuesday, March 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.

Liberation From Isolation

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:01:19 +0000

For participants in a deaf seder, signing is the norm and no one feels like an outsider.

Yehoshua Soudakoff

Special to The Jewish Week

Tuesday, March 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.

Crashing The Seder Story

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:59:03 +0000

When ‘Historia’ and ‘Politica’ take seats at the table.

Cynthia Ozick

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, March 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.

The Telling, And The Retelling

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:57:49 +0000

New Haggadahs for an old story boast hip lit and Ethiopian drama.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 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)

Macaron Madness

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:54:29 +0000

Tips and tricks on how to make the cosmopolitan treats in your own kitchen.

Amy Spiro

Special to the Jewish Week

Tuesday, March 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.

The New Kneidlach Conundrum

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:48:00 +0000

Forget heavy or light. Matzah ball varieties — from spicy to sweet to stuffed — provide plenty of options.

Amy Spiro

Special to the Jewish Week

Tuesday, March 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.

Free To Give

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:41:39 +0000

Passover gifts, with an eye toward aesthetics and meaning.

Sandee Brawarsky

Special To The Jewish Week

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Chanukah may be the season for exchanging presents, but Passover has its own traditions of gift giving, with none of the pressures. We searched for gifts that had beauty and meaning, with some fun too; many are handmade and some are local (and some are both). A number of these selections address the very themes of the holiday: supporting freedom for all people. Gifts that give, they enable — through their marketing — the people who made them to advance their lives.

Passover 5772: What Freedom Means

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:37:00 +0000

The new kneidlach conundrum, macaron madness, this year’s Haggadahs, aesthetic and meaningful (and cool) gifts.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A Different (Second) Night

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:25:00 +0000

How do you make the second seder distinctive? Readers offer a variety of suggestions.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

You sit down at the seder table, start the holiday meal with Kiddush, then déjà vu hits you: didn’t we do this last night?

For many people, the second seder — Yom Tov Sheni Shel Galiuot, which takes place only in the diaspora — is a challenge. Going through the same readings and rituals seems repetitive. Those who already asked “why is this night different from all other nights?” strain to make the second seder different from the first.

A Warsaw Ghetto Passover

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:13:00 +0000

‘I never missed a seder,’ says survivor who risked his life to join family at a seder in the doomed Jewish quarter.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Near the start of the seders I conduct, mostly in former communist countries, I usually cite, then refute, the statement by Ahad Ha’am, the early Zionist leader, that “More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.”

The seder, I say, has preserved the Jewish people; most are not shomer Shabbat; most go to a seder, even it involves a sacrifice.

That’s not bull. It’s Bull.

Parceling Out The Passover Story

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 13:02:00 +0000

Niche publishing comes to the Haggadah.

Steve Lipman

Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

In a trend that has been growing in recent decades, the publishing industry – which has brought printing into everyone’s hands and allowed publishers to gear their products to particular segments of the market – now offers Haggadahs and related Pesach books that appeal on the whole, to specific parts of the Jewish community.