Passover was high drama in my childhood. Preparations began weeks in advance, with meticulous scrubbing, shopping and organizing. Strong emotions came out in the days before the holiday, when every crumb of hametz had to be removed, and we had to tread very carefully. One mistake could bring calamity. When we finally sat down for…
Jews who want to challenge the community use foods as a way symbolizing those challenges on the most heartfelt of Jewish rituals: the Passover seder. Each day, we will examine a different food and what it means. Passover has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. Even as a child, I remember being slightly embarrassed that…
Jews who want to challenge the community use foods as a way symbolizing those challenges on the most heartfelt of Jewish rituals: the Passover seder. Each day, we will examine a different food and what it means. In 1997 I wrote a book with the title “Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and…
Last year I put a tomato on my Seder plate. I invite you this year to consider doing the same. The retelling of our liberation story at Passover is powerful, but we deepen the sense of the story through tasting it symbolically. We ingest the bitterness of slavery through the maror. The saltiness of the…
Since the earliest days of colonial America, our government has been involved in guiding consumer food choices. Through graphics, public service announcements, and food labeling, the government has been in the business of helping us decide what and how much to eat. Last Thursday, the USDA and First Lady Michelle Obama continued this tradition by…
Many homes will have oranges on their Seder plates come the first two nights of Passover, starting Monday evening. And there will also be lots of different versions of the story explaining why we put it there. Now Rabbi Andrew Sacks, head of the Conservative movement’s Israeli branch of the Rabbinical Assembly, has laid the…
Come seder night, Jews the world over will be sharing age-old traditions, like drinking four cups of wine and hiding the afikoman. But at what seems like a growing number of seder tables, the old traditions are being joined by newer ones which reflect the lives and voices of women. Perhaps the best-known new tradition…
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