Celebrate Passover while you can
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The author is 3 (far left) and his sister Sharlene is 7 in this family photo. |
Passover, the eight-day Jewish Festival of Freedom, will begin with the first
of two Seder meals tomorrow evening (April 5), and the holiday --- which commemorates
the ancient Hebrews’ flight from slavery in Egypt --- carries an even deeper
meaning these days due to what the Anti-Defamation League has called
record-high antisemitism in the United States.
It's both discouraging and chilling that antisemitism remains a major problem
in 2023, but given the hateful nature of American politics these days --- when
people (and not just extremists or would-be terrorists) demonize their
opponents and openly talk about killing them and inciting riots and inflicting violence
on them --- it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
That atmosphere makes our memories of the holiday even more precious, and that’s
the subject that I delved into with two versions of the same column.
This column was published April 1, 2023, in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA,
and a different version was published in the April edition of Jewish Rhode
Island of Providence. I’ve provided the links to both columns at the end of
this post.
******
The picture that accompanies this column goes to the heart of what Passover, the
eight-day Jewish Festival of Freedom, means to me as the years fly by: a chance
to reconnect with my youth, especially during the two Seders, which this year
will take place on the evenings of April 5 and 6.
Over the years, the Seders have inevitably transformed me into a Proustian Jew,
giving me the ability to smell my late Bubbe’s (grandmother’s) gefilte fish and
borscht.
For those unfamiliar with the French author Marcel Proust, my reference is to
his seven-volume early 20th-century work, “In Search of Lost Time”
or “Remembrance of Things Past,” two translations of “A la recherche du temps
perdu.” (The former English title is a literal translation of the French.)
Full disclosure: I haven’t read his entire novel, but as a French student, I
read excerpts and my reference to being a Proustian Jew refers to one of the
most famous examples in the work of what’s known as involuntary memory. It
stems from Proust’s description of eating a French pastry called a madeleine as
an adult, which he said triggered a childhood memory.
Passover has always done that for me, as everything surrounding the Seders tends
to stimulate early memories. The photograph that appears with this column is
from one of those childhood Seders.
Dating from 1956, the photograph was taken in my parents’ Dorchester apartment.
My 3-year-old self is on the left and my sister Sharlene, at 7, is on the
right. Standing from left are my maternal grandparents, David and Bertha Ross, and
my aunt and uncle, Marcia and Harold Nash. On the table sit my mother Sylvia’s
glass Passover dishes and a carafe of wine. At the bottom of the photo is Elijah’s
cup.
The scene was pretty ordinary: a family gathering for Passover, but 67 years later,
what the photo represents seems extraordinary, even remarkable, given all
that’s transpired in the last three years.
Three years ago, scenes like this would have been either inadvisable or
illegal, depending on which state you were in and how seriously people were
taking the then-new coronavirus outbreak, which we would call COVID-19, and
which over the last three years has killed more than 1.1 million Americans and
millions more worldwide.
The lockdown took place a few weeks before Passover, which meant Seders were restricted
to the immediate family. Although Zoom brought more people to the Seder table,
those virtual visits weren’t the same as in-person gatherings. Things improved
slightly in 2021, with vaccines becoming available and Passover last year was closer
to normal.
This year’s Seders, however, have taken on an even deeper meaning, given the frightening
resurgence of antisemitism in the post-COVID world.
A new report by the Anti-Defamation League said Massachusetts’ rise in
antisemitic incidents in 2022 was higher than increases in New England and the
country, putting the state among the top six states in the nation, which
recorded a 36 percent hike. That figure, as well as the state’s 152 incidents (a
41 percent hike from 2021) and the 204 in New England, were record highs since the
ADL began tracking the information in 1979, the agency reported.
Those distressing statistics led New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft to
launch a $25 million “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” campaign through his Foundation
to Combat Antisemitism. The campaign’s main thrust is to make the country aware
that even though American Jews make up only 2.4 percent of America’s
population, they’re now the victims of 55 percent of all hate crimes, Kraft
said.
The irrational scourge of antisemitism --- being pushed by increasingly
emboldened groups of white supremacists and neo-Nazis --- has made my childhood
memories of Passover especially precious.
Growing up, my parents and grandparents took celebrating the holiday to heart,
but not too seriously. By that I mean that children were encouraged to be at
the Seder table, even if they’d sometimes do foolish things.
I wasn’t exempt from such behavior, and when I was a little older than the
toddler in the photo, I drank a bit of wine instead of whatever non-alcoholic
beverage I was given. My face turned red after a couple of sips, which explains
why I’ve been drinking grape juice at Seders ever since.
Another ritual that I recall fondly was hunting for the hametz (bread and
leavened products that aren’t eaten during Passover) on the night before the
first Seder. My father Ike and I would use a feather to scrape the breadcrumbs
off windowsills, but the highlight would take place the next morning. That was
when Ike would take the bag of hametz and other leftover bread into the
backyard and burn it. I’d join him on years when there was no school on the day
of the first Seder because it coincided with Good Friday or April vacation.
Nowadays, burning the hametz would become another excuse to unleash antisemitic
tirades, but in the simpler era when I grew up, burning stale bread in April
was a pleasant rite of spring and Passover.
Those memories give me sustenance at a time when the very right of the Jewish
people to exist is once again under attack, just as it was in ancient times and
has been so often in the centuries to follow, especially in the 1930s when the
Nazis consolidated power and hatched the Final Solution to exterminate the Jewish
people.
That’s why, as another Passover is about to start, it’s imperative that we embrace
our Passover memories --- and make some new ones --- while we still have the
freedom to do so.
Larry
Kessler, a retired Sun Chronicle local news editor, can be reached at larrythek65@gmail.com. He blogs at larrytheklineup.blogspot.com
Link to the Passover column that appeared Saturday, April 1,
2023 in The Sun Chronicle:
https://www.thesunchronicle.
Link to a "less heavy" Passover column that appears in the April 2023
edition of Jewish Rhode Island. https://www.jewishrhody.com/
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