Tag Archives: Passover

April 22, 2024 · 7:30 am

Trekking to Lakewood, New Jersey 

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

“It will be a boring visit, I know it will be. I want to be with my friends. They’re going to the movies, and I’ll be left out. Do we have to go, Mom?”

“We have to visit Grandma. She always expects us a week before Passover every year and we don’t want to disappoint her. It’s too hard for her to make a seder. So going a week ahead gives her the feeling that we are together, like it’s a real seder. And as always, we will celebrate two nights of seders, one with friends, and one with the three of us at home next week.”

Dad nodded his head in agreement. 

“No discussion, we’re going.”

“Ok, I guess we’re going.” I hated that long ride down the Garden State Parkway. “Maybe I’ll read a book on the way or take a nap. Maybe we won’t have to stay long.”

Dad and Mom glared at me after I said that. Clearly, they were displeased with me.

Once we arrived, Grandma kissed me and gave me a huge embrace. I almost lost my balance.

Dad greeted his Mother. “Rosie, how are you?” Dad always called his Mother by her first name. I always thought it was disrespectful but I kept this to myself. Dad never liked to be challenged.

It was no surprise to see Grandma scrubbing the sink, then slicing some foods on a special board set aside for Passover each year. Grandma followed the requirements for Passover food preparation.  How she managed to do all her Passover cooking in this tiny kitchen still surprised me. She changed dishes, pots, and pans for this holiday. It was hard to imagine where she stored these Passover-only kitchen items after the eight-day holiday ceased. It was here in Grandma’s kitchen I learned about keeping Passover.

Grandma and her second husband, Max, lived in an dingy upstairs apartment with a  kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a bedroom. Max was a miser. Anyone seeing this apartment would have been amazed to learn of my step-grandfather’s wealth. His adult children made sure there was a prenuptial agreement so that Grandma had no inheritance upon Max’s death. While my dad was upset when he learned of this, he and Grandma realized that she should go ahead with the marriage. It was better for Grandma to have a companion despite the spitefulness of Max’s adult children. Grandma started almost penniless prior to marrying Max, and she ended up the same way.

From the moment we arrived at Grandma’s apartment, I noticed how much older she and my step-grandfather looked from last year. Grandma was a short, stout lady with white hair pinned up behind her head, probably in her seventies then, maybe older, and she looked shorter and heavier. Max was a tall, slim, white-haired man, partially bald, who looked tired and frailer. He barely spoke. I never remember having any conversation with him. 

Suddenly, instead of disliking this trip, I wanted to help Grandma with the food preparations. I can’t explain the change in my mood. Instead of being sullen and annoying, I started to act more grown-up, not like a spoiled pre-adolescent. Maybe I wanted a relationship with my grandma and felt sad that so many years had passed since I had last seen her. So many of my friends had Zadies and Bubbies they were close with. Some lived with their families; some lived close by. I wasn’t so fortunate. We lived far apart. Maybe it had to do with my father’s distant relationship with his Mother; they were only intermittently close. Perhaps Dad’s relationship with Grandma had been marred by his having to go to work at the age of 14 in order to support their family. He had lost his childhood and his education. Maybe he suppressed his anger at her. But I also sensed in that hug, as their eyes met, he really loved her.

I still remember a surprising thing that happened when I saw Grandma many years ago. We were having a great time. I told her about my teacher and my friends. Then I remember saying that I had eaten a bacon, lettuce, & tomato sandwich for lunch that day. Grandma became upset. I had no idea why. She went into our kitchen, and within a few minutes I heard nasty rumblings between Grandma and Dad. I heard the word “bacon.” Why were they arguing about bacon? Several years later, I understood why Grandma had been so upset. She observed kosher dietary laws. Bacon isn’t kosher. She and Max ate only kosher meat and poultry, supervised by a rabbi with an OU label on each product. I think she was disappointed that we didn’t keep kosher. I wondered why my parents didn’t, but I never asked them. Mom came from an Orthodox Sephardic Jewish home, and Dad had grown up in an Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish home. Why didn’t they follow the traditions that they had grown up with?

From these visits to Lakewood, I learned how to choose kosher for Passover foods and make a home clean and ready for Passover. Grandma told me that she cleaned cabinets, counters, closets and searched for crumbs, chametz, which had to be disposed of before the holiday began. Did Max help her? I doubted it. He was a sedentary, reclusive person. Maybe she never asked him. Throughout her life, Grandma worked hard and rarely had help. She was used to it. But as she aged, I could see how it became harder for her to do some of the things she used to do.

“Grandma, let me help. I know how to do things for Passover. I have friends whose parents keep everything kosher for Passover.”

“Here, you can put these dishes on the table.”

“And what about the silverware?

“Yes. And you can put them out, too.”

“Grandma, do you want me to put a piece of lettuce on each small plate to go under the gefilte fish?”

“Yes, bubbelah. Yes, meine aynikl.”

“Do you want me to fill these glasses with wine?”

“Yes.” 

“Can I have some?”

“How old are you now my bubbelah?”

“Eleven.” 

“Ok, a little schnapps can’t hurt.”

Then she pressed me against her large bosom, gave me a huge hug, and kissed me on each cheek. Her face filled with a warm glow that I felt for days afterwards. 

I knew Grandma had traveled in steerage with her parents and siblings from Poland to New York in the late 1800’s. I knew they had been sick for days in choppy waters. She spoke Yiddish and had to learn English in a foreign land. I knew her first marriage to a physically and emotionally abusive man had been a disaster. More choppy waters. And I knew she had raised four children herself after she locked my Grandpa out of their apartment. I doubt that Grandpa Henry gave her any money to support their children once she locked him out. 

Many years later, she married Max, who enjoyed her meals and her housekeeping without providing her with a more enjoyable and enriching life. Why would they remain in this little apartment when they could have lived with a little more luxury? When Grandma held me to her bosom and hugged and kissed me, I realized how amazing it was that she had any love left, having been deprived of love most of her life. I withheld tears. Grandma deserved better.

We sat down to eat lunch in their small dining area. The table was just big enough to fit five of us. The meal was reminiscent of what we would eat next week at the seder at the home of our friends. Gefilte fish. Then chicken soup with matzah balls followed by slices of potato kugel. For the main dish, she served chicken breasts seasoned with paprika and cloves of garlic, covered in onion slices, and bathed in chicken broth for baking. Everything tasted delicious. Then came my favorite. Dessert. Chocolate-covered macaroons, a specialty every year for Passover. Swee-touch-nee tea, Kosher for Passover,  ended the meal.

After lunch, I asked Grandma to tell me how she made gefilte fish. Like many old-world cooks, she didn’t have a recipe. She was a professionally trained guesser.

“Bubbelah, I grind carp, white fish, pike, mush them together with matzah meal and eggs, shape them round or into a log, like today. Broth, onions, fish skins, heads, bones, add carrot slices. Then boil them.” 

Can you tell me anything else? How much fish to use? How much matzah meal? How many eggs? How many carrots? How long do you boil them?”

“I don’t know, I just do it.”

I didn’t get specifics for making gefilte fish but I learned a lot about Grandma. What I thought would be a boring day turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life. 

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter has contributed writings to the 2024 Birren Collection The Gift of A Long Life, Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Anthologies, Writing it Real anthologies, The Jewish Writing Project, the Jewish Literary Journal, True Stories Well Told, Writer’s Advice, New Millennium Writings, and 101words.org. She has contributed poems to Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write, Growing/ Older, and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. Ms. Blatter is a recently retired psychotherapist, she is also a wife, mother, and grandmother of her very special granddaughter who already writes her own stories  

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October 16, 2023 · 7:30 am

You Want Me to Keep a Kosher Kitchen? Really? 

by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)

I was surprised when my husband-to-be told me that he wanted me to keep a kosher kitchen.  

“How do you keep kosher?” I asked.

“I can show you. I use white gold-rimmed glass dishes which are ok for both meat and dairy on the first two shelves of that cabinet.” 

He pointed to a wooden four-shelf cabinet with a brass handle on its door above the Formica counter. 

“I keep pans for dairy and meat on the third and fourth shelves. On the back side of each one is incised with either a D or an M.  I can put sticky notes on each of these drawers so you will know which silverware is for dairy and which is for meat. It’s really easy.”

“I don’t think it sounds so easy. . .” 

Anxiety visited me. My stomach felt tense and I started to sweat. My heart rate climbed. I’ve never been very good at change and I’ve always feared failure. Now recollections of old failures tried to take hold of me again. 

A few deep, steady breaths helped me relax. Keeping kosher is not a test of competence. What are the worst things that can happen? Maybe I will mix up meat and dairy silverware? Maybe I will make an egg and cheese omelet using a meat pan instead of a dairy pan? Then I reminded myself that mistakes are inevitable. There’s no penalty I could think of for goofing up with the exception of my slightly damaged ego, some embarrassment, and some shame which will all be short-lived. Maybe I will disappoint my husband-to-be, but that’s ok. He’ll have to get over it.

I took the big step. I told him I would keep kosher.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

* * *

My husband, unlike me, grew up in a kosher home. His parents never mixed meat and milk. They had separate meat dishes and dairy dishes. And they had separate dishes, pots and pans, silverware, and utensils set aside only for the eight-day holiday of Passover. That’s what he knew and keeping kosher was his choice in adulthood.

“We’ll work on this together,” he told me. “I use these bowls for cereal at breakfast and small dishes for sandwiches like tuna and egg salad for lunches on the weekends when I’m not at work. And I use these large plates at dinner time for a meat or chicken meal. Sometimes I use these larger bowls for kosher soups. Almost all are parve except for the chicken soup.”

“What’s parve?”

“Neutral. Parve foods can be eaten alone or with meat or dairy. Glass doesn’t retain either. ”

“What else will I need to know?” I asked, feeling my stomach churn again.

“Don’t get too worried. You’ll be fine. We’ll work together preparing our Shabbat dinner. What about chicken for the main meal? 

“I know many ways to make chicken,” I said, relieved to know I could cook some of my favorites, like baked chicken with seasonings of onion salt and paprika, mixed with wine and orange juice, and chicken cacciatore, chicken browned first with minced garlic and baked with a tomato, onion, and basil sauce.

“Wow, that all sounds great. I was a bake ‘n shake man until you joined me.”

* * *

We married a few days before Passover to avoid the eight-week no-marrying period between Passover and Shavuot.

All I remember about Passover was seeing a box of matzah on the kitchen table in our apartment. We didn’t search for the chametz. I never saw my mom do a mega-house cleaning. I don’t think we even had a seder. So how could I have possibly known what to do?”

Fortunately, friends invited us to the first seder on Passover just after we got married. We arrived early. I told Bobbie, our hostess, that I had no idea how to keep kosher for Passover. She showed me the pantry where she kept the Passover-only dishes, silverware, pots, pans, and utensils. In a second pantry, she kept Passover-only non-perishable foods. Bobbie taught me which foods were appropriate for Passover.

In the middle of the table was the seder plate with the roasted egg, the shank bone, the celery, the hazeret, the charoset, and shavings from the horseradish root. We read from the Haggadah and discussed the theme of freedom from slavery and the current forms of enslavement. I’ve never forgotten that seder. It shaped my understanding of Passover and my desire to give seders in the future.

* * *

Throughout the fifty-four years of our marriage we have kept kosher. For me, keeping kosher is part of being a proud and devoted Jew, continuing a practice that has contributed to Jewish survival for thousands of years. 

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter is a recently retired psychotherapist in private practice. She has contributed writings to Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Journal and One Woman’s Day; stories in Writing it Real anthologies, Mishearing: Miseries, Mysteries, and Misbehaviors, Real Women Write: Growing/ Older, Real Women Write: Seeing Through Their Eyes, Story Circle Network’s Kitchen Table Stories, The Jewish Writing Project, Jewish Literary Journal, New Millennium Writings, 101words.org, and poems in Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write, Beyond Covid: Leaning into Tomorrow, and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. She is a wife, mother, and grandmother. 

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April 10, 2023 · 6:30 am

The Baba

by Mark Russ (Larchmont, NY)

The Baba, as she was called, was not my baba, nor was she my bube nor my bobe.  I must have first set eyes on her when I was two and a half on a frigid February day, my first in Philadelphia, having been carried in tow by my parents from Cuba, my birthplace, along with my older sister.  I don’t remember the Baba at that first meeting, but the image of her that grew in my mind in the ensuing years was indelible.  Short, wiry, sporting a stern, weathered face, and piercing green eyes, her gray hair in a bun, she was a force to be reckoned with. A look from her was enough. 

Like I said, she was not my Baba.  She belonged to my six-year-old cousin, or better put, he belonged to her.  She watched over him intently, such that no evil, and, no evil eye, should befall him. Pu pu pu! As doting as she was to him, that’s how nasty she was to me.  Why?  What had I done to deserve such treatment?  For him, she tolerated his fondling her soft dangling earlobes with his fingers.  For me, a cold stare.  The Baba, doubtless, regarded me as an intruder.  Truth be told, my entire family was the intruder.  The four of us moved into my aunt and uncle’s already crowded row house for several months until my father could find work and we could rent a house of our own. Doubling and tripling up in bedrooms, competing for the single bathroom, and accommodating Cuban cuisine, were only some of the tensions. For the Baba, I became the focus of her displeasure.  

The Baba, I later learned, actually had a name.  Khave.  She was the youngest of nineteen children, and the only person of that generation that I had encountered in my early life.  I had assumed all in her generation, the generation of grandparents, had died before the war or were murdered in the calamity.  The Baba, in sharp contrast to my parents, was tied to traditions against which many in my parents’ generation rebelled.  She lit candles on Shabbes, wearing a delicate white lace on her head when she did so, and recited the brokhe in an undertone.  Unlike my parents, aunt and uncle who were “modern” Jews despite their Eastern European roots, she was a relic from the old country.   

She also happened to be a terrific cook and literally made everything from scratch.  No dish more so than the gefilte fish she prepared for Peysakh.  I learned this in dramatic fashion when I wandered into the bathroom of my aunt’s house and saw several very large fish swimming in the bathtub.  They moved in the tub, ever so slightly, suggesting they were not dead, yet.  I was startled, a bit disgusted, but asked no questions.  I imagined the fish ended up in Baba’s kitchen but did not dwell on the thought.  And I certainly never dared poke my head into the Baba’s command center.  Entrance was strictly forbidden, lest I risk meeting the same fate as the fish. 

As may seem obvious by now, I found life with the Baba frightening.  Her demeanor toward me was unkind.  She was harsh and uncaring.  In one instance, she barred me from riding my cousin’s tricycle, even though he was at school.  Of course, I was a bit of an antikl (a rare piece of work, a “pistol”) myself.  Once, when she proclaimed I was not permitted to sit on the sofa in the living room for fear I might soil it, I decided to pee on it out of spite.  To finish the story, my father, in what I still regard as among the greatest acts of kindness I have been blessed to receive, bought me my own tricycle with his very first paycheck.   

These early years in Philadelphia were difficult for my family and I recall them as being somewhat dark.  But Peysakh, and the seders we shared with my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and yes, the Baba, were bright spots of those years.  The Baba would start things off with candle lighting.  My father and uncle, both lifelong Bundists, Jewish socialists who abandoned religion in favor of a Yiddish cultural milieu, took turns chanting from the Haggadah in fluent Hebrew at lightning speed.  They had attended kheyder in Poland as boys, and the words and trops returned each year as reliably as monarch butterflies.  The effect was hypnotic, albeit strange and out of character.  They stopped reading when they got tired, or when the rest of us clamored that it was time to eat.  Whatever commentary accompanied the seder was in Yiddish, the lingua franca of our families.  There were nine of us sitting around the table; five in my aunt and uncle’s family, and four in ours.  These were the survivors, and these were their children.  Except for my father’s sister and her family in New York, there were no others.  As a boy, I was both aware and not aware of the smallness of our group.  They were the only family I knew, and no one spoke of those who were absent.  What was the point? 

But there were other unseen spirits at our seder.  My cousin took pleasure in secretly shaking the table, causing the wine within Eliyohu’s kos to lap the insides of the cup.  This was presented as evidence that the prophet’s spirit was among us.  I was taken in by the deception which made me anxious.  I was already fearful of a prophet-ghost who wandered from seder to seder.   My angst reached a climax when we opened the door to allow him to enter.  I hid, terrified he might actually show up.  

Later in the seder, after the meal consisting of kharoyses, an egg with salt water, gefilte fish, with roe, carrots, jellied fish yokh, and khreyn, chicken soup with kneydlekh (the small, hard kind), some version of gray meat, a peysekhdike kugl, and tzimmes, I felt comforted.  This feeling of well-being only increased after we broke out in Yiddish Peysakh songs: Tayere Malke, gezunt zolstu zayn, a Peysakh drinking song.   

As Peysakhs came and went, I grew less afraid of the Baba, and less afraid of Eliyohu.  My fear was replaced by an empty sadness, a yearning for the ghosts who might have distracted me from the smallness of our seder table.  It was a longing, perhaps, for even more than a brand-new tricycle, a Baba of my own.     

Mark Russ is a psychiatrist in Westchester County, New York.  He is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Russ was born in Cuba and emigrated to the United States at the age of 2 with his parents and sister. He was the first in his family to achieve a baccalaureate degree and attend medical school. Dr. Russ has contributed to the scientific psychiatric literature throughout his career and his short fiction pieces have appeared or will soon appear in The Minison Project, Sortes, Jewishfiction.net and The Concrete Dessert Review.  

Click on the link to read Mark’s previous story on The Jewish Writing Project: https://jewishwritingproject.com/2022/03/07/yosl-and-henekh/

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April 5, 2023 · 11:10 am

Passover Table

by Janice Alper (La Jolla, CA)

Thanks to Joy Harjo

This is the table

where Zayda held court.

His grandchildren cut their teeth 

on matzah, 

made crumbs on the floor.

This is the table

where sweet red wine stained

the white tablecloth

and the little books we read

about freedom.

This is the table

where I learned to ask questions,

listened to uncles argue,

aunts disagree.

And Zayda droned on…

with a twinkle in his eye.

This is the table

stretched out

to make room for one more

who had no place to go.

This is the table

I hid under

with my cousins

giggled

played pat-a-cake

as the seder went on

late into the night.

This is the table

where we slurped hot matzah ball soup

ate roast lamb

tzimmis

sticky desserts

loudly sang Passover songs.

This is the Passover table

today,

compact,

far from its original home,

where memories resonate

with every drop of wine

every matzah crumb.

The image of Zayda

hovers over us

as we continue the tradition

with new melodies

new rituals

and ask more questions.

Janice Alper has reinvented herself in her senior life as a writer of poems, personal essays, and memoirs which have been published in San Diego Poetry Annual (2018, 19, and 20) The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Shaking the Tree. Currently, Janice’s memoir, Sitting on the Stoop, about her Brooklyn, New York childhood from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s, will be available on Amazon in the next few weeks. Words Bursting in Air, her book of poetry, may be obtained by contacting her at janicealper@gmail.com. You can follow Janice on her occasional blog, www.janicesjottings1.com

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May 2, 2022 · 6:30 am

The Passover Walk

 by Jacqueline Jules (Long Island, NY)

It was his idea to go to Central Park.

 “You love to walk, Mom,” he said. 

He was 26, in law school, and not as a rule, the kind of son who suggested outings his mother would like. I suspected he felt guilty for begging out of the second Passover Seder at his brother’s apartment on the West Side. I could have absolved him. Could have said that one Seder was enough for someone who’d been glancing at his phone under the table all night. He always suffered stoically at Seders, not being a fan of matzah ball soup, charoset, or the long service his older brother liked to lead. His only joys at Passover were the brightly colored fruit slices everyone else criticized as being full of carcinogenic dyes.

“If you can’t come tonight,” I agreed, “a walk this afternoon is a nice trade-off.”

The weather was glorious for early April. Sunny and sixty-five degrees. His step was uncharacteristically peppy, pointing out blooming flowers he said I’d like. I panted sometimes, trying to keep up, not daring to ask him to slow down, afraid he’d think I was too tired to continue. Time alone with a grown son was worth sore feet later on. 

He was a proud tour guide, insisting we visit Belvedere Castle, an attraction I hadn’t seen on any previous trips to New York. 

Reaching the balcony and the panoramic view, he grinned at me, sharing the small endearing space between his two front teeth.

“I knew you’d love this, Mom.” 

We leaned against the railing for a good twenty minutes, admiring the greenery, framed by the Manhattan skyline. I felt so full, so grateful he’d given me these precious hours.  

“When I’m old and gone.” I touched his arm, rock solid under his light jacket from lifting weights. “Remember how happy you made me today.” 

It was a year before his diagnosis. Colon cancer, stage four.  Neither of us ever imagined what kind of gift this day would become, how at Passover, I would be the one left to recall our animated walk through Central Park in place of his bored presence at seder. His strong legs striding beside me, still pulsing with life. 

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021) and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications, and she is the author of 50 books for young readers including four Sydney Taylor Honor winners, two National Jewish Book Award finalists, and ten PJ Library selections. To learn more about her, please visit her online at www.jacquelinejules.com.

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April 11, 2022 · 6:30 am

Pesach

by Simon Constam (Toronto, Canada)

Who today asks 

down to the last detail,

as the Haggadah wants us to do,

down to the revi’it of wine, 

the kezayit of matzah, 

whether in the absence of children 

the afikoman ought to be hidden? 

And we rush over the business about it being us 

in Mitzraim. 

Our people were slaves in Egypt,

isn’t that enough

someone always asks. 

And someone always says that there are natural explanations 

for all the plagues.

And someone always mentions the Palestinians. 

And at least one kid always asks, aren’t we done yet. 

“Call down thy wrath upon…” begins then

and some of us and always the guests shift uneasily in their chairs. 

And Eliyahu 

disguised as the cat

no longer comes in 

when the door is opened

as he used to when I was young. 

Grandfather (it’s always a surprise to know that is me)

is a baby boomer who’s going to live too long.  

Here it is early April and he’s already been out on his motorcycle.

To some this is mildly embarrassing. 

But he’s still needed, 

the only one with even a smattering of Hebrew, 

one of only several now who can remember 

how Seders used to be. 

Simon Constam is a Toronto poet and aphorist. Since late 2018, he has published and continues to publish, under the moniker Daily Ferocity, on Instagram, a new, original aphorism every day. He also sends them out to an email subscriber list. His first book of poetry, Brought Down,  a book of Jewish poetry, was just published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. He can be reached at simon.constam@gmail.com

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May 17, 2021 · 7:00 am

Meeting Elijah

By Jodi Rosenfeld (Phoenixville, PA.)

I met Elijah once on Brattle Street in Harvard Square.

When we read about Elijah the Prophet each year in the Passover Haggadah, we learn that he visits once a generation, or perhaps once a year, appearing in our very doorways to drink his wine. 

His job? To check us out—to see if humanity is ready for the coming of the Mashiach. 

He is a wily spy that scopes out this earthly home of ours to see if we are deserving of the great Messiah’s arrival. No such arrival? We can assume that Elijah stamped our report card with a big red “Not Ready.”

Now I don’t believe in any of this. But I do believe this story is one that is meant to challenge us in profoundly personal ways. And I do believe I met Elijah.

It was an unusually warm Sunday afternoon in April of 1996, and I was doing some shopping alone in Harvard Square. The Square was jam packed with locals and tourists, college kids and elderly pedestrians. 

On Brattle Street, I came upon a white woman, perhaps in her thirties, standing on the sidewalk in front of a line of shops. She looked haggard and a little sunburned, and she held a sign, handwritten with a marker on cardboard, that said, “Homeless with AIDS.” 

Her belongings were around her. There may have been a small grocery cart with some clothes and, of course, a jar with a few dollars and change. I put in a dollar. I was not prepared for what happened next.

“Excuse me,” she said, looking right at me. “Would you mind doing me a favor? Could you watch my things for just a minute while I run into this store and buy a soda?” She gestured to the small grocery behind her.

“Um, sure,” I answered. She handed me her sign, pulled two dollars out of her jar, and went into the store. I think she was gone a total of four minutes. It felt like an hour.

As I stood there, among the throngs of people, holding the sign that said, “Homeless with AIDS,” I learned about shame. 

Passersby sneered and scowled. One woman rolled her eyes and made a sound of disgust. A man put some coins in the jar but looked me up and down as he did. When the woman came back to relieve me, I was dripping with sweat. 

I walked casually away, but I wanted to run. I wanted to run from the judgement and derision of strangers, from my shock and disappointment in the people I’d encountered, and from myself for feeling embarrassment and shame.

And then I forgot all about it until one Pesach two decades later when I thought about this idea of Elijah coming to see if humanity was ready and deserving of an ultimate miracle. 

That’s when I looked back and realized I’d met Elijah once. 

Our wily prophet was a homeless woman with AIDS.

Jodi Rosenfeld is a clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety and acceptance-based therapies. She holds a degree in English and Women’s Studies from Tufts University and a doctorate from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology (now William James College). She lives with her husband and two teenaged children in the western suburbs of Philadelphia and will be starting rabbinical school in fall of 2021. Her debut novel, Closer to Fine, will be published on May 25, 2021 by She Writes Press.

For more info about Jodi, visit her website: www.jodirosenfeld.com/author

And if you’d like to attend her book launch on May 25th at 7:00pm, visit: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/rosenfeldatreads/register

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April 15, 2019 · 7:43 am

Challah Covers

by Maureen Rubin (Los Angeles, CA)

My family endlessly obsessed over my brother’s bar mitzvah.  Guest list, menu, music, clothes.  Were burgundy velvet tuxedos too much?  When it was over, I was only ten, but started counting the days until my own bat mitzvah.

Not going to happen.   In my hometown shul in 1960, girls could not get bat mitzvahed.  Instead, we would take part in a group confirmation.  Fifty Jewish girls in white dresses–without blue satin sashes.

Spurred on by the injustice of bat mitzvah prohibition, I drifted away from Jewish studies after my dull confirmation.  In college, my Jewish connection was limited to attending Rosh Hashanah services at Hillel so I could meet Jewish boys from ZBT.

But the one event I looked forward to each year was the Passover seder where we reconnected with our huge, loving family. Our seder was the Reader’s Digest condensed version.  No haggadahs and we completed the story of Passover in record time.  Jews, slaves, Moses, plagues, burning bush, Red Sea, freedom. Done. Then we ate.  And ate.

My freshman year I went home for Pesach with a friend whose family finished the entire haggadah with a discussion on each part.  The in-depth dialogues around the table set off brain sparks.  I could suddenly relate the history of Pharonic oppression to what was then happening to American women.  I don’t want to be sacrilegious, but clearly there were parallels.  OK, we weren’t building pyramids and eating dirt, but we could legitimately protest how women’s futures were being sculpted by everyone but them.  Women in America were living our own form of Egyptian slavery!

Years later, I married a wonderful man who was proud of my career and life choices.  We had two daughters.  When our eldest was 13, we decided to give her the bat mitzvah I never had, but would have loved.  She would be bat mitzvahed on Mount Masada, where King Herod had built a complex that sheltered the last survivors of the Jewish revolt.  Masada remains a symbol of the continuing human struggle between oppression and liberty.

The ceremonies were unforgettable.  We sat in a stone amphitheater and looked down on our beautiful children. Ten 13-year olds, five girls and five boys, all wearing white, took turns reading from the Torah on the very spot where our ancestors chose mass suicide instead of Roman oppression. There wasn’t a dry eye in the dessert.

When the ceremony was over, the “new adults” received gifts.  The boys received beautiful hand embroidered tallitot and the girls received–challah covers! Suddenly, we saw movement below us, we heard buzzing from the girls. A voice rang out, demanding “fairness of gifts.” It was our daughter.

“We girls do not want challah covers,” she said.  “These gifts are not fair.  We are being treated differently.  Why did the boys get things they can wear to synagogue while we got things that keep us in the kitchen? We want to be treated the same.  We want tallitot.”

How proud we were.  Her act of civil disobedience reminded us of Biblical midwives who defied the Pharaoh’s orders to kill all the newborn baby boys.  In this sacred setting, it became clear that my daughter and her generation did not have to be told to remember that their ancestors were slaves in Egypt, nor that their foremothers were allowed few life choices.

The girls got their tallitot.  My daughter’s tallit became the chupah at her wedding and she will pass it on to her beautiful Jewish feminist eight-year old when the time is right.

Maureen Rubin is an Emeritus Professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge. In her 30 years on campus, she taught writing and media law , served in a variety of administrative positions, published widely and received numerous teaching and public service awards.  Prior to joining the university, Rubin was Director of Public Information for President Carter’s Special Assistant for Consumer Affairs in the White House, and held similar positions for a U.S. Congresswoman and several non-profits. She has a JD from Catholic University School of Law In Washington, D.C., an MA in Public Relations from University of Southern California and a BS in Journalism from Boston University.

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April 17, 2017 · 6:29 am

The Chametz Boys

by Chaim Weinstein (Brooklyn, NY)

When I was 11, I was the only one of my neighborhood friends who went to yeshivah. They all attended public school and then went to the Talmud Torah on Hendrix Street. 

My Talmud Torah friends and I rarely talked about school, religion, or life, but we all loved discussing baseball.   

We loved everything about the sport: playing it, watching it, trading team and player cards, knowing all the statistics better than we knew facts about our own families. I never knew, for example, the birthdate of my cousin Feivel, or where he was born, or exactly how old he was. But I knew everything about Mickey Mantle, including that he came from Oklahoma (an exotic “country” to us) and how extraordinary his baseball achievements were, especially in light of his being stricken with osteomyelitis. 

No one knew or cared then about his personal problems, just that he was voted MVP, won the Triple Crown Award, batted .356, and hit 52 homers in 1956, an extraordinary athlete. Plus, he wore number 7 on his uniform, so that meant he understood the importance of Shabbos. (Just kidding.)

But, seriously, how could you not love such a guy or his teammates, Whitey Ford, Tony Kubek or Bobbie Richardson, baseball warriors all? They played their hearts out with skill and passion, and we loved them for it.

Several days before Passover one year, one of my friends suggested that we all go to Yankee Stadium for a game. We grew thoroughly excited at the idea, and we all agreed to go. But we knew we could only afford to sit in the bleachers, where seats then cost about a dollar. My friends wanted to go on Yom Tov itself, but I convinced them to hold off until Chol Hamoed, the holiday’s Intermediate days, when work was permitted, so that we could all go together, and they agreed. 

I couldn’t wait for the day of the game to arrive.

Game day was a scorcher, 93 degrees in April at the first pitch, but who cared? We were traveling together on the subway from Brooklyn to a major league baseball game in the Bronx to see our beloved Yankees, and for me, a chance to see the great Mick. 

My mother, may she rest in peace, had made me a great Passover sandwich: egg salad on matzah, which she broke in half so I could feel like I was eating two sandwiches. It looked so good at home that I couldn’t wait to open it at the stadium. But when I saw what my friends were eating at the game, I was, frankly, you should pardon the pun, less excited: they’d bought franks at Yankee Stadium, and franks and more franks, and I was quite jealous. 

Still, we were all in the moment, sitting together at Yankee Stadium, the sounds and smells of a live baseball game filling our senses, and I eagerly awaited the appearance of my hero, Mickey Mantle, who would play centerfield and bat fourth, as usual. 

We couldn’t wait for the game to begin.

I stole glances at the hot dogs and buns and sodas my friends were enjoying, and I felt unhappy. But as they munched contentedly on their stadium hot dogs, I excitedly peeled back the tin foil that covered my egg salad matzah sandwich. When I took it out, however, holding half of my matzo sandwich in the palm of my hand in the noonday sun, both ends of my sandwich sloped downward, a soggy matzah mess. 

My friends looked at my wilting matzah sandwich and laughed out loud, elbowing each other and pointing to my sad matzah sandwich. I could only look at their buns and dogs and sigh jealously. They smirked, enjoying their hot food, and I sheepishly grinned, embarrassed at my own matzah and yellow egg-droop-sandwich and warm canteen water. 

In the end, none of it really mattered as all of us got caught up in the excitement of the game and watched the great Mick and his Yankees destroy the opposing team. 

The Cleveland Indians were the ones who really wilted in that game, and although my funny matzah sandwich was the butt of 11-year olds’ jokes for a few hours that day, we all glowed from the brilliance of the Yankees play in general, and the Mick’s in particular.

That was a happy Pesach indeed.

For more than thirty years, Chaim Weinstein taught English in grades six through college in New York City public schools as well as in several parochial schools. His poems and stories have appeared on The Jewish Writing Project, and his short story, “Ball Games and Things,” was published in Brooklyn College’s literary magazine, Nocturne.

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April 3, 2017 · 9:08 am

Regarding Passover

by Mel Glenn (Brooklyn, NY)

I recently learned from
my religious friend, Chaim,
that “seder” means “order”.
He has no way of knowing
what passed for Passover at my house
when I was too young
to rebel against the tradition of
eating and reading, eating and reading,
while waiting hours to actually dig in,
and wanting to escape the arguments
that boiled over between my parents.
All I wanted then was to quickly
devour my meal and head for the TV,
to avoid our relatives who were
too loud discussing topics alien to me,
and asking me questions about my future
I was in no position to answer.
The whole world seemed chaotic.
Even so, my seven-year-old self
made quick work of the Four Questions.
“May I be excused,” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” my father answered,
while diligently explaining all
the fourteen steps of the traditional meal.
“Children have to be told the Passover story,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “I heard the story last year,” I said.
At that age I had my own problems,
school yard squabbles and the like,
and was stressed about other things long forgotten.
His stare silenced me.
Now, mired in my seventies,
with my own children,
grown and far-flung,
I wish I would have had
a little more respect for the Passover tradition.
It could have provided more order to my life.

The author of twelve books for young adults, Mel Glenn has lived nearly all his life in Brooklyn, NY, where he taught English at A. Lincoln High School for thirty-one years.  Lately, he’s been writing poetry, and you can find his most recent poems in the YA anthology, This Family Is Driving Me Crazy, edited by M. Jerry Weiss.

If you’d like to learn more about his work, visit: http://www.melglenn.com/

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