Know Your Jewish Community: Passover Food

I hate Passover food. As a mostly-vegetarian, my diet contains a lot of beans, corn, rice, legumes, and grains, so Passover sucks (if only I were sephardi/dating a sephardi, there could be an end in sight). However, most Jews seem to love Passover food. How do I know this? Lots of people gain weight during Passover. Ergo, they are eating a lot, and they must be enjoying it, right?

Amy of Cooking With Amy has a couple dessert recipes that don't look so heinous. Although the heinousness of Passover deserts is, of course, relative to how much you want a dessert. Gillian Pollack of Food History talks a little bit about traditional Greek Passover foods, which are probably better than traditional Eastern European Passover foods, which include things like gefilte fish--the hot dog of the fish family.

One Jewish Dyke of her eponomyous blog has a bit of a rant about the prohibitive cost of Passover food. Which, I agree, is absurdly high. However, in this case one can understand how the overhead would be much higher, even than regular kosher food. She seems to be a bit surprised at the existence of Passover Pizza (mmm Passover "convenience" foods, whoda thunk it?), as is Jason Weinberger of Spot of Bother. All I can say on the subject is that Jews get stupid while shopping for Passover. You have a short period of time in which to do your shopping, a limited supply, and a shortage of good ideas. The result? My Mom has 4 different vinegars, and 3 canisters of spray oil, but no soups (except for matzoh ball). I have 3 cans of tuna, a container of light KLP mayo, and a package of string cheese.

Anyone else have a weird food combo? Also, for the record, as I live in NY, I don't need to stockpile, as I have been going, every morning to one of the (three!) kosher supermarkets within a five block radius of my apartment to purchase premade food, at great expense. It is, however, cheaper than buying the raw materials, AND the necessary equipment to assemble it, as I have zero Kosher for Passover utensils/equipment.

Passover: Annie's Crazy Family

Before I get to talking about the sedarim, I just want to point out that Jewbiquitous just got their first ever "Nigerian Spam" email. Although this one appears to have originated in Burkina Faso. My favorite part of this email is that it begins with the words "Compliment of the day" and then goes on to describe a plane crash. Awesome. I am more than willing to send it along to anyone who would like to read it in its entireity.

And on to sedarim. So, as I've mentioned before, my family likes to kick off the seder with "tequila shooters." No joke. As a result of this, last year I had to explain "body shots" to my Mom and Aunt. Hurrah. Then followed by my Dad, Uncle, and adult Cousin. This year's word of the seder: Choad. Apparently on the drive down to my house my cousins were playing ghost (a spelling game, second only in popularity within my family to "geography.") and the littlest one used the word "choad." As a result, I had to listen to the elder members of my family make choad jokes all through the first seder.

For example
Aunt: Ooh, a luxury suite, that's a big hotel room.
Uncle: But it's no choad.

The best part of this story? The cousins called their older brother (a senior in college) to confirm the definition of choad. He was in class, but rarely gets calls from his brothers, so he left and answered the phone, almost in a panic. He picks up to hear hysterical laughter. And then the question. His response? "You called me for this? Really?" My family is amazing.

Other jokes that we tell every year that I missed;

Q: What is the difference between parsley and [female genitalia]?
A: No one eats parsley.

Q: Why do we dip eggs in salt water?
A: Because the Israelites were up to their balls in salt water.

Last, but not least, it was decided, on the second seder night, that when my father becomes too senile to lead the seder, I will take over for the cousins. In response I claimed that my seder will be ruled with the "iron fist of tradition" as opposed to "ask a good question/give a good answer and get a piece of candy." Which leads to many moronic questions, like "what IS the meaning of all of these laws that have been given to us?"

Passover: In Pursuit of Freedom

Many of us are preparing to sit down for a festival meal with friends and/or family to celebrate the fact that we were released from the "house of bondage" (which BTW also makes my family giggle. The whip-crack sounds that accompany it are also always funny.) And, to be super-lame and sound like every single rabbi in this country, this is a good time for us to think about others who are not so fortunate. Those who are in figurative or literal bondage.

Danya of Jewschool blogged about Rabbi Levin-Krauss' "empty chair for Darfur" idea, which, for the record, contains a component where you donate the cost of that meal. He suggests a few charities, but I'd like to add IRC to that list. IRC is responsible for those ads in the NYC subway that have a black hand with fingers of different races, or the words grandmother,uncle, father, etc.

Another good option, as Pissed Off Liberal Jew of POLJ points out, is donating to micro loan programs. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was awarded for his work with micro loans, so they've been in the news a lot recently. If you're wondering where is a good place to start, then check out Slate's piece comparing different microlending programs.

One of my problems with giving tzedakah* is that I feel like I can't make a difference. Apparently I'm not the only one, as a few non-profits have arisen (arose?) to deal with this specific issue. The most famous of these is DonorsChoose, an organization which allows teachers to post a "grant proposal" for their school/classroom's needs. Then DonorsChoose finds a way to purchase the required equipment and posts the price online next to the proposal. As an individual you can look for projects that interest you, donate however much you want, and even see how close the project is to coming to fruition. Overall a really satisfying experience. However, if American schools is too limited of a category for you, check out Changing the Present, and organization that works on the same principles, but with a wider variety of projects. I have linked to a project whose goal is to build a schoolroom in Darfur.

Sorry for the seriousness, I promise that the next post will include something silly and/or flippant.

*Tzedakah is Hebrew for charity

Know Your Jewish Community: Sedarim

Now I'm going home for the Sedarim* (as is Harley), so I don't have to worry this year about where I will find myself on the first two nights of Passover. I will be in the bosom of my family, watching my father giggle at the line "and Moses took his rod into his hand and performed signs with it, and wonders." That NEVER gets old.

At any rate, not everyone will be laughing at such puerile jokes (my mom, for instance) instead they will be at many different types of Sedarim. An article in the NY Observer describes a couple of famous seders held/attended by the LA giliterati. (Warning: NY Observer articles tend to go offline after a couple weeks, so if the link is broken, I apologize) Now I'm all for people experiencing Judaism in whatever way is meaningful for them, but I have an issue with this article. And this is it: "When Roman Polanski was shooting Chinatown and wanted to return to his native Poland in order to celebrate Passover, the film’s producer, Bob Evans, intervened and threw one of his own. The Kiddush was read by Kirk Douglas."

Roman Polanksi wanted to go home for Passover, and was offered, instead, a place at a seder run in an obviously non-traditional fashion (which is great, but I can't imagine that the sedarim in Poland are anything other than traditional). It just strikes me as wrong: "oh, you wanted to go home? We can't afford the time off from shooting, so we'll just make do here. See? Just like home, except with Kirk Douglas involved, so it is clearly better."

Anyway, I did a scan of some of the major sites to see what other kinds of Passover experiences are available, so here's my rundown:

Jewcy: only the one option, In Haggada Da Vita in LA. If you live in NY, sucks to be you.

BluePrint: a "Guide to Passover" which seems to have a fair bit of coverage. A bunch of different options for different experiences, and is not limited to the first two nights. And if you navigate through their community calendar you get a plethora of options.

92nd Street Y: has a community seder, but I'd be wary as it is run by the "director of Jewish outreach" (outreach is often a keyword for intermarried), but then again, I'm a bit cynical.

Blogerher: links to a "seder-finder" which is super-useful. Caveat: all the sedarim are run by Chabad. Less useful.

If you're running your own seder, MyJewishLearning.com has a piece on how to add drama to your seder. My family doesn't need any more drama, as shown by the "wine removal incident" of 2004. At any rate, we might actually use the Open Source Haggadah to build our own, as my mom is getting really sick of the "Moses' rod" jokes. Really sick. But seriously, Aish has a list of "10 Ways to Enjoy the Seder" (my suggestion: drink heavily, and sit next to the Pedant) and Tamara Eden posted her response which includes some more global suggestions.

On a more practical note, if you think that the sederim tend to be too long, David Bernstein of The Volokh Conspiracy has a suggestion for a 30-minute seder. For those who wish to incorporate feminist themes into the seder (and really, who wouldn't?) MilbyDaniel gives a good rundown of rituals, and some history. Other progressive options include those of Saul Kaiserman at New Jewish Education who suggests leaving an empty chair in honor of victims of the Darfur genocide.

I will be enjoying my family's fairly traditional seder where candy is given for good questions and good answers, the wine flows freely, and so do the jokes about Moses' rod.

*Sedarim is the Hebrew plural for Seder. The direct translation of "seder" means order, but in this context it is the festival meal that takes place on the first night/two nights of Passover, generally including a great deal of ritual, and readings from a book of liturgy called the Haggadah.