The Vicious Babushka

20 Photos That Will Change the Way You Look at the Holocaust

Buchenwald survivors toast their liberators, 1945

Victims. Helpless. Downtrodden.

That’s the narrative that’s been spread about Jews for the last 70 years since the Holocaust. We’ve embraced it to our detriment. We can’t seem to address antisemitism without running to the world and screaming that we’re being persecuted, rather than standing up strongly in defiance, aware of our own inner strength.

The Holocaust has scarred us, a yetzer hara (sneaky bastard of a voice in our heads), that keeps trying to tell us how we are defined by our past, controlled by events that happened to us, instead of using those moments as points of growth.

And, in a weird way, that’s why all those images of us looking so helpless, so gaunt, in heaps of nameless bodies, have become a morbid fascination for us. We, and by extension the rest of the world, has chosen to define the Holocaust with these images.

But there are other images. Images that show a more subtle, more true, story. A story that shows our inner power, our inner turmoil in dealing with a situation we cannot comprehend, our attempts to gain justice, and our final steps into moving above and beyond our past and into a new future.

View the gallery at PopChassid.

Happy Passover!

HAPPY PASSOVER!

Kosher Wine Evolves From Cheap Syrup to Collectible Vintage

Napa vineyard

The syrupy kosher wines of the past are now the exception to the rules: in recent years, a number of producers have begun making classic red and white kosher wines; a pioneer was Herzog Wine Cellars in Southern California, and there also is a growing wine industry in Israel.

If you remember when kosher wine meant mostly cheap and sweet, you probably also know that the second part is no longer true. Today, there are plenty of quality kosher wines being made around the world.

But did you also know that kosher wine has come so far there now are even super-premium bottles that go for more than $100 a bottle?

"It's absolutely amazing how it's evolved," says Michael K. Bernstein, owner of The Cask in Los Angeles, which stocks and sells exclusively kosher wines and spirits. "It's mind-boggling how many different kosher wines there are."

The syrupy kosher wines of the past stemmed mainly from economics. Jewish immigrants to America needed wine, a crucial part of their religious traditions, but didn't have access to high-quality grapes. So they used the Concord grapes that grow in the Northeast, producing wines with an unpleasant character, usually describe as "foxy," which was masked by adding sugar.

But in recent years, a number of producers have begun making classic red and white kosher wines. A pioneer was Herzog Wine Cellars in Southern California, and there also is a growing wine industry in Israel.

Making wine kosher isn't particularly hard, says Jeff Morgan, winemaker at Covenant, a winery in the Napa Valley that makes a kosher cabernet sauvignon that goes for $90 a bottle. The ingredients in wine are kosher; the trick is to keep things that way.

The basic requirement for doing that is to make sure that the grape juice and fermented wine is only touched or handled by Sabbath-observant Jews, which is what happens at Covenant, where associate winemaker Jonathan Hajdu is a Sabbath-observant Jew.

Read more at Haaretz.

No Bread for POTUS! Obama Will Keep Kosher-for-Passover on Israel Visit

It's Matzah!

The King David will roll out the carpet, but hold the rolls. With the hotel in a security lockdown, all the food necessary for the trip and the prosperous Pesach crowd to follow is being stored in containers out back.

When U.S. President Barack Obama said yes to a long-overdue visit next week, his first since becoming president in 2008, it’s not clear that he knew what he was getting himself into. Gastronomically, anyway. The entire King David Hotel, where he’ll be staying with an entourage that will fill all 233 rooms from Wednesday March 20 to Friday March 22, will be made kosher for Passover (Pesach) ahead of his visit.

Were the staff of Israel’s most famous hotel to have waited until Obama and his team departs next Friday, it simply wouldn’t have left the King David enough time to get ready for the holiday, which is an enormously important time for nearly every hotel in the Jewish state – especially in Jerusalem.

“We’re used to hosting heads of state and also American presidents, but this situation is very special for us because it’s so close to Pesach,” says hotel manager Dror Danino. “For us it will be double the preparations.” The additional security necessary for ensuring the president’s safety means that the entire hotel will be “under siege,” as he put it, meaning that everything necessary for servicing the hotel during the president’s visit must be there in advance of his arrival – from food to linens. As such, the hotel had to rent out huge refrigerated containers and park them out back, just to accommodate all the food and drink that won’t be able to be delivered during the visit – and which will be needed for the well-heeled Passover guests who will arrive straight after Obama and stay through the following week.

Read more at Haaretz.

In the Wake of Passover, Scammers Dump Holy Scraps They Were Paid to Bury

Abandoned "Shemos" in Boro Park

Several weeks ago, the NY Times reported:

On any ordinary day, yellow school buses with the Hebrew names of yeshivas dominate the ultra-Orthodox landscape of Borough Park, Brooklyn. But in the days before Passover, large trucks parked along many of the sidewalks are far more striking, particularly those bearing signs with a Hebrew word obscure even to most Jews: Sheimos.

Sheimos (pronounced SHAME-os) is a term for religious books containing the Hebrew name of God that need to be ritually buried in the ground.

As Passover approaches, Orthodox Jews strive to rid their homes of even the slightest trace of bread or other unleavened grain products known as chametz, almost down to the molecule. Bibles, prayer books and volumes of Talmud receive a thorough airing as well, and the most dog-eared specimens are often discarded. But Jewish religious law considers throwing them in the trash a desecration.

So parked all day on many streets in Borough Park and nearby neighborhoods like Midwood are trucks whose drivers will carry books to a cemetery upstate for a fee of about $8 to $10 a box.

Today, it was reported:

Brooklyn, NY - Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) was outraged to learn that a van full of shaimos had been abandoned in Borough Park.

A resident of the community called the Assemblyman this morning to complain of a van that had been parked in the community since Pesach. When a member of the Assemblyman’s staff went to investigate, he discovered a box van with out-of-state license plates that had received several parking tickets. A look inside revealed that the back of the van was full of boxes containing shaimos (books or other sacred objects which can no longer be used but may not be destroyed).

“This is not the first time that con artists have pulled this kind of stunt,” said Assemblyman Hikind. “The disposal of shaimos is often done around Pesach when people are cleaning and they have no idea who it is that’s accepting their packages of shaimos on the streets. It’s a cash-and-carry business that’s ripe for scammers. What an absolute disgrace.”

Read more at Vos Iz Neias.

Doofus of the Day: MJ Rosenberg Orders Obama to "Stop Pandering to the Jews"

President Obama at White House Seder.

MJ Rosenberg, competing with Gilad Atzmon for Most Self Hating Jew EVER, seethes and moans:

Someone at the White House just doesn’t “get” American Jews. Take a look at this, one of the many postings from the White House site (they are also emailed) that address us as if we just arrived from Poland or Russia.

Does the Obama team really think Jewish voters (or even those all-important and self-important big donors) are impressed by White House Passover recipes? Does anyone actually turn to the White House for help in preparing matzo ball soup?

Of course not. This is just the Obama administration pandering to a group of voters that it has decided is different from all other groups of voters.

The most ridiculous (and insulting) White House pander came at Hanukkah. This article from the New York Times about how the White House was made kosher for one event has to be read to be believed. Here is an excerpt, enough to cause James Madison to commit suicide if he wasn’t dead.

Read more at MJ Rosenberg's blog, where he freaks out over religious Jews TAKING OVER the Obama White House and "they're not even going to vote for him anyway." Who else said "F* the Jews, they're not voting for us anyway." James Baker, a prominent Republican in the Bush administration.

Why is it "insulting" and "ridiculous" to serve kosher food at a White House event on a Jewish holiday? Oh: because MJ wasn't the guest of honor, we suppose.

Is this really MJ's blog or a spoof blog? Because if it's really his, he is even more of a freaking lame dweeb than anyone could possibly imagine.

Passover Wishes from President Obama

 

Ahead of Passover, Strict Standards Transform a Brooklyn Neighborhood

Shemos Truck

On any ordinary day, yellow school buses with the Hebrew names of yeshivas dominate the ultra-Orthodox landscape of Borough Park, Brooklyn. But in the days before Passover, large trucks parked along many of the sidewalks are far more striking, particularly those bearing signs with a Hebrew word obscure even to most Jews: Sheimos.

Sheimos (pronounced SHAME-os) is a term for religious books containing the Hebrew name of God that need to be ritually buried in the ground.

As Passover approaches, Orthodox Jews strive to rid their homes of even the slightest trace of bread or other unleavened grain products known as chametz, almost down to the molecule. Bibles, prayer books and volumes of Talmud receive a thorough airing as well, and the most dog-eared specimens are often discarded. But Jewish religious law considers throwing them in the trash a desecration.

So parked all day on many streets in Borough Park and nearby neighborhoods like Midwood are trucks whose drivers will carry books to a cemetery upstate for a fee of about $8 to $10 a box.

Passover preparations transform a neighborhood like Borough Park just as the Christmas season transforms the nation’s Currier & Ives villages or the jostling sidewalks of Fifth Avenue. Passover, the eight-day holiday that celebrates the Exodus from Egypt, an event that defines Jews as a people, consumes many Jews who observe it, but in Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods the degree of fevered stringency can be breathtaking.

Read more at NY Times.

Yes, it is totally true that Passover is a whole bunch of work, intended to re-enact Egyptian slavery, with a whole bunch of arbitrary stringencies that are totally unnecessary but which are TRADITION (obligatory "Fiddler" chorus).

Like the Hasidim described in the above article, Babushka does not eat gebrukts on Passover, but also does not buy a new food processor from year to year. The Cuisinart that we bought 10 years ago still works great!

War on Passover! Outrageous Outrage!

Bag o'Plagues, fabulous Passover toy!

Staging free children's shows on Passover in predominantly Jewish areas discriminates against Arab children, according to a High Court of Justice petition filed on Monday on behalf of two 7-year-old Israeli Arab girls and the Arab rights organization Adalah.

The petitioners are asking the court to issue an interim injunction ordering the Culture and Sports Ministry to delay the government-funded shows scheduled to be performed in 110 predominantly Jewish cities and towns. The ministry refers to the shows collectively as "Operation Afikoman," after the piece of matza for which children traditionally search at the end of the Passover seder, which takes place Friday night.

"Making a list of towns that excludes all the Arab towns in outlying areas constitutes an arbitrary decision that is not based on egalitarian criteria," states the petition, filed by Adalah lawyer Sawsan Zahar. "This distinction between the towns, which in turn leads to distinctions between Jewish children and Arab children, undermines the constitutional right to equality that is part of the constitutional right to dignity enshrined in the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom."

"The request for an interim injunction is necessary in light of the simple fact that implementing the program for a single population only, without without previous legislative authorization, infringes on the right to equality and is unconstitutional as long as the discrimination has not been remedied," the petition states.

The hundreds of thousands of Arab children in the country have school vacations at Passover time, just as Jewish children do, said Adalah. In addition, they said, Christian Arabs like the two girls from the Galilee town of Yafia who filed the petition are also celebrating a holiday: Easter.

Read more outrageous outrage at Haaretz.

I think this is kind of "over the top." They can offer an "Easter Egg Hunt" for non-Jewish kids.

A Call From the Heart of Mrs. Eva Sandler, Survivor of Toulouse Terror Attack

Sandler family HY"D

My heart is broken. I am unable to speak. There are no ways for me to be able to express the great and all-consuming pain resulting from the murder of my dear husband Rabbi Jonathan and our sons, Aryeh and Gavriel, and of Miriam Monsonego, daughter of the dedicated principal of Ozar Hatorah and his wife, Rabbi Yaakov and Mrs. Monsonego.

May no one ever have to endure such pain and suffering.

Because so many of you, my cherished brothers and sisters in France and around the world, are asking what you can do on my behalf, on behalf of my daughter Liora and on behalf of the souls of my dear husband and children, I feel that, difficult though it may be, it is incumbent upon me to answer your entreaties.

My husband’s life was dedicated to teaching Torah. We moved back to the country of his birth to help young people learn about the beauty of Torah. He was truly a good man, loving, giving, and selfless. He was sensitive to all of G-d’s creatures, always searching for ways to reveal the goodness in others.

He and I raised Aryeh and Gavriel to live the ways of Torah. Who would have known how short would be their time on this Earth, how short would be the time I would be with them as their mother?

I don’t know how I and my husband’s parents and sister will find the consolation and strength to carry on, but I know that the ways of G-d are good, and He will reveal the path and give us the strength to continue. I know that their holy souls will remain with us forever, and I know that very soon the time will come when we will be together again with the coming of Moshiach.

I wholeheartedly believe in the words of the verse: “The L-ord has given, and the L-ord has taken away; blessed be the Name of the L-ord.” I thank the Almighty for the privilege, short though it was, of raising my children together with my husband. Now the Almighty wants them back with Him.

To all those who wish to bring consolation to our family and contentment to the souls of the departed: Let’s continue their lives on this Earth.

Parents, please kiss your children. Tell them how much you love them, and how dear it is to your heart that they be living examples of our Torah, imbued with the fear of Heaven and with love of their fellow man.

Please increase your study of Torah, whether on your own or with your family and friends. Help others who may find study difficult to achieve alone.

Please bring more light into the world by kindling the Sabbath candles this and every Friday night. (Please do so a bit earlier than the published times as a way to add holiness to our world.)

The holiday of Passover is approaching. Please invite another person into your homes so that all have a place at a Seder to celebrate the holiday of our freedom.

Read more at Chabad.org.

8th Graders Learn How to Make Homemade Wine (Wait, What!)

 

Winemaker Joseph Zakon took his son's class on a journey to make kosher wine with the Carbonic Maceration technique.

By COLlive reporter

Wine brands like Kesser, Joseph Zakon Winery, Farbrengen and Seloh have been for years a regular item on the Shabbos tables of frum Jews worldwide.

What is less know is that their creator, Joseph Zakon of Crown Heights, was the youngest person to start a bonded winery on the West End of Long Island back in 1981.

This past months, at the urging of Rabbi Levi Feldman, his son's teacher at the Oholei Torah boys school, Zakon agrees to teach the youngsters the tricks of the trade.

Although his marrying off a daughter this week, Zakon took the time to purchase California Special brand wine grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese from a local market.

He was showing them a technique called Carbonic Maceration (whole grape berry fermentation) and gave each student a plastic 96 ounce container filled with grapes (stems were removed).

With loosely tightening the cap on the container, they allowed the carbon dioxide to escape during the natural process of fermentation. Fermentation was taking place within the whole berries and some juice that escaped from the grapes on the bottom of the containers pressed or bruised.

The students then had the opportunity to visit the Herzog winery, the largest kosher winery in the world, where they could see their work being processed efficiently on a much larger scale.

After approximately 30 days, the students emptied the grapes and fermenting juices from their plastic bottles into 5-gallon pails.

Zakon then came to their classroom with a modified home juicer (which does not allow the juicer to grind the seeds and skin of the grapes and prevents bitter flavors from the skins and seeds into the wine).

He explained that this juicer can be used for smaller quantities and is less back breaking then the traditional basket press. However the draw back was that he allowed the grape skins not to be pressed completely dry.

Approximately 30-40 days after the wine settled in the class room, Zakon showed the young bochurim the process of racking the wines off the lees and sediment.

The wine they were racking from the top of the container was clean, but had not reached the brilliants one expects from bottled wine.

Joseph explained that for that to happen most efficiently, one can use a fining agent that will blend with the wine. Then as the wine settles this fining agent causes the more stubborn sediments to cling to the fining agent and settle to the bottom of the container.

For this wine, he used a raw egg white of a half egg per 5-gallons.

The students were again fortunate to visit the bottling winery where they experienced up close the speed and efficiency used to bottle wine and grape juice, for the many Jewish communities.

After many months of patiently waiting, the day finally arrived, and the students bottled their wine with the help of a water filter, a single bottle filler connected with plastic tubing, a single bottle corker, an electric hot water kettle, bottles, corks, heat shrink seals.

And perhaps, most importantly, a self-stick label that the children designed using a home computer. They called it "Yain Malchus."

Zakon makes sure to note that although his was a thrilling experience for the students, they did not get to sip the wine, instead bringing it home to their parents to taste.

Read more at COLLive.com.

"They did not get to sip the wine" Oh I am so relieved. According to Vosizneias,

The project began in September with each boy receiving an empty ninety six ounce plastic bottle and three pounds of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese grapes and ended in March with each student bottling, corking, labeling and sealing their own bottle of wine.  The result?  A dry, fruity red Kosher L’Pesach wine, with a sixteen percent alcohol content that, according to Zakon, has a nice flavor now but will improve with age as it develops.

16% alcohol! That's really strong for wine. At the seders at our house, we use 5.5% wine, otherwise we wouldn't make it to the end of the seder!

Shop for Passover at the Zionist Mall!

All your Passover products are here!

Yes, it's that wonderful time of the year! The weather is getting warmer, little crocus buds are peeping out from the soft ground, and the smell of Lysol is in the air!

Wait, what?

Yes, Spring (Passover) time is here!

The Zionist Mall has everything you need for an excellent and memorable Seder. Seder Plates, Elijah and Miriam Goblets, Tableware, and a selection of Haggadahs from the very traditional to the latest alternative interpretation.

Whole Foods Hanukkah Fail (Sequel to Whole Foods Passover Fail)

Hanukkah favorites: Matzo! (LA Jewish Journal)

Because Whole Foods featured Passover display: Whole Wheat Flour!

Pwn3d! Jews Sell Their Chometz, Gentile Takes It All Because it Belongs to Him

This is chometz.

Selling hametz to a non-Jew allows observant Jews to keep products which are not kosher for Pessah. Normally, they sell the goods back.

A gentile man taught a Jerusalem haredi community an important lesson when he acted on his right to take their leavened products bestowed upon him ahead of Pessah in what was obviously more than just a symbolic act.

The tradition of selling one’s hametz to a non-Jew is what allows observant Jews to keep in their possession various products which are not kosher for Pessah. Normally, after the holiday, the non-Jew will sell the goods back.

As reported by haredi media outlets, members of the Mishkenot Yaakov community in the capital’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood were encouraged by their Rabbi Simcha Rabinowitz to take the tradition one step further, and rather than selling the hametz, actually give it to the non-Jew, who would presumably return it after the holiday.

Many people chose to put their products – including expensive alcoholic beverages – in the room destined for the hametz, believing that such an act would be a higher degree of observing the holiday’s prohibition of not owning leavened products.

After the transaction took place and shortly before the holiday began, however, the gentile arrived with his vehicle and proceeded to take the goods, which were legally his. Objecting to his actions was not an option, since that would prove that the deal was not sincere, which would mean that the hametz would have belonged to the Jews.

Read more at Jerusalem Post.

Happy Passover to All Our Friends

 
May you all enjoy a blessed holiday of peace and freedom!

Pepsi Goes For That Sweet Passover Business

 In case the store is all out of "The Real Thing"

Passover starts tonight, which means that fans of non-HFCS colas can stock up on 2-liters of soda that eschew any sort of corn-based ingredients in favor of sugar. But while we've written about kosher Coke in year's past this is the first year we've noticed that Pepsi is offering a Passover-ready drink.

Just like kosher Coca-Cola, the only real way to tell if the Pepsi bottle is what you're looking for is to play "spot the different colored caps." Coke's kosher variety is bottled with yellow caps (as opposed to the drink's usual red) while Pepsi replaces the blue caps on its HFCS variety with white caps for the kosher kind.

[Chris Morran] found this bottle at [his] local grocery store in Brooklyn, but [he] wasn't able to locate any Pepsi Throwback in order to see how similar the ingredients are on the two HFCS-free products. So [he] did the next best thing and actually asked a Pepsi rep if they are the same beverage in different bottles.

"Pepsi Throwback and Kosher for Passover Pepsi are not the same product," the Pepsi peeps told [him] in an e-mail. "For one, the Throwback product is not automatically kosher just because it uses real sugar — it would have to be produced in a bottling facility that goes through kosher certification. Second, the two products have a different flavor system — the concentrate is not the same for the two products. Consumers should check the cans or bottles in their area to see if they are certified kosher."

Read more at Consumerist.com.

Family Bakes Own Matzah in Backyard Brick Oven

One of Zachariah Brauner's 102 grandchildren operates the matzah bakery

A Borough Park man has an unorthodox style of preparing for Passover - a backyard bakery.

Zecheriah Brauner, 89, fires up a huge outdoor oven once a year to make matzo for the Jewish holiday, which starts this Monday.

"My father used to make matzo in our home," Brauner said, recalling his childhood in rural Hungary. "So let me do what my father used to do."

A retired baker, Brauner began the tradition of cooking the thin, crispy wafers in his backyard 20 years ago, and it now feeds more than 150 relatives and neighbors.

While the flattened bread is cooked the day before Passover begins, setting up a full-fledged kosher kitchen outside Brauner's 54th St. home takes a week.

"It looks like any other driveway the rest of the year," said Sandy Brauner, 21, one of Zecheriah's 102 grandchildren. "It takes a lot of work."

Kosher rules forbid sunlight from shining on the dough, so Sandy rigs a high canopy and wooden walls that block out rays.

Then they build the stations for mixing flour and water, flattening the dough, and rolling it into discs.

A wood- and coal-burning oven sits in a shed and bakes the matzos in under a minute.

Over the afternoon, it churns out hundreds of them for family and friends who flock to the house and serve them at Seder - the feast on the first two nights of Passover.

From start to finish, each batch takes exactly 18 minutes and is done under the supervision of a rabbi from the ultra-Orthodox community.

"Every half step is written out on how to make it," said Alexander Rapaport, 33, another grandson of Brauner.

The retired baker can't easily move around the makeshift bakery anymore, but he still starts the ceremonial mixing of flour and water - the only ingredients in matzo.

Luckily, help is nearby. The family calls 54th St. "Brauner's block," because relatives live in eight other houses on the street.

Groups of 30 men and boys aged 13 and up work in shifts on a matzo assembly line.

"It gives you a different emotional feeling to eat matzo that you made yourself," said Yosef Rapaport, 56, Brauner's son-in-law.

"Everyone has a chore. The grandchildren run around trying to help," he said.

Most people in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood stock up on matzos at bakeries or synagogues.

Rabbi William Handler, who lives in the neighborhood, tipped his hat to the family for keeping the tradition alive.

"It's the way it used to be done in Europe," said Handler. "It's an expense and requires expertise. Somebody has to really want to do it to set that up."

Read more at NY Daily News.

Israel Sending Hametz to Japan

Makes more sense than just burning it. Better for the environment, too.

Ahead of Passover, My Israel movement seeks to deliver leavened food to residents of tsunami-hit areas with Foreign Ministry's help

While Israelis are busy removing chametz (leavened food) from their homes ahead of Passover, Japan is still dealing with one of the greatest disasters in its history. A group of social activists has found a connection between the two.

In the coming days, volunteers of the My Israel movement plan to visit homes across Israel, wait at the entrances to supermarkets and try to collect all the Israeli chametz and send it, with the Foreign Ministry's help, to tsunami-hit areas in Japan.

Every year, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, Israel holds a ceremony in which it sells its leavened products to a non-Jew. According to Jewish Law, all food which is not kosher for Passover must be sold for holiday and bought back after the mid-holidays.

Tradition allows selling the leavened food to any person who is not Jewish, who can do with it as he pleases. Israel's chametz is usually sold to a resident of the Arab village of Abu Gosh, but this year the association's volunteers will try to send part of it to the Japanese.

Following the natural disaster and nuclear crisis in Japan, the country's residents are experiencing a shortage of products like flour and noodles, which are considered chametz in Israel.

"We call on all readers to bring us the products they won't be eating on Passover, because there are those who need them," says My Israel Chairwoman Ayelet Shaked. "We want to implement the value of mutual commitment not just within our people, but with other nations as well."

The chametz shipment will be prepared by Foreign Ministry workers, who will load crates bearing flags of Israel and the caption "From Israel with Love" on one of the next planes leaving for Japan.

Read more at YNet. The comments are even more insane than usual.

The problem is, leavened wheat products are not normally part of the Japanese diet. Their usual carbohydrate is rice, which is not chametz (although Ashkenazi Jews refrain from eating it on Pesach)

No good deed, and all that. The Japanese may be more deserving, but Babushka thinks the chametz should be sent to Gaza, where everybody is totally starving and stuff.

Co-Opting Passover: The New, Hip, Agenda-driven Seder

The "Food Desert" Seder Plate, for the desperately impoverished who can only obtain food at inner city bodegas, or, really really cheap people.

The traditional Seder plate contains an egg, shank bone,  karpas, charoset and maror. Some also make room for the hazeret, another kind of bitter green.

But recently other fruits and vegetables have showed up on the plate, representing a variety of causes from solidarity with oppressed Jewish communities to welcoming the intermarried.

First was the orange, which has come to symbolize the power of Jewish women -- female rabbis, the Jewish midwives in the Exodus story, gender-neutral language in prayerbooks, that sort of thing.

But when Jewish Studies professor Susannah Heschel first plunked down a tangerine on her Seder plate in the early 1980s, it was in the name of gay and lesbian inclusion, as she explains in this essay on Miriam’s Cup . 

    "During the first part of the Seder, I asked everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over fruit, and eat it as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community…In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out – a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia that poisons too many Jews." [Do people actually do this?]

A few years ago, olives started showing up as a call for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

This can take kumbaya form, as in the Shalom Center’s “Passover of Peace: A Seder for the children of Abraham, Hagar and Sarah."

Or it can have a more activist bent.  In 2008, Jewish Voice for Peace promoted putting an olive on the Seder plate as part of its “Trees of Reconciliation” project to donate 3,000 olive saplings to Palestinian farmers. [Why don't they just cut their own throats and become human Passover sacrifices?]

The following spring, the Shalom Center raised JVP a fruit, suggesting folks include both an olive and an orange in its 2009 "Freedom Seder for the Earth."

    "Why this olive? Because for millennia the olive branch has been the symbol of peace, and we seek to make peace where there has been war.Why this orange? Because in olden days there was no orange on the Seder Plate and it was said ["It was said"? Who said it? And when? And where is this written?--Update: the whole story about a stern elderly rabbi declaring the "orange doesn't belong on a seder plate" is totally bogus. The true story is that Susannah Heschel herself was outraged that some radicals were putting a slice of bread on the table, so she persuaded them to use an orange instead.] that outsiders—gay men and lesbians, transgendered people, converts, those who lack some important ability or skill, the unlearned—all these no more belonged in the community than an orange belongs upon the Seder plate. So we place an orange to say firmly, All these belong in our communities." [How about an assortment of fruits and nuts?]

 How about an artichoke?  In an essay on interfaithfamily.com, Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael suggests this prickly vegetable with the soft heart for the interfaith-friendly Seder plate.

    "Like the artichoke, which has thistles protecting its heart, the Jewish people have been thorny about this question of interfaith marriage. Let this artichoke on the seder plate tonight stand for the wisdom of God's creation in making the Jewish people a population able to absorb many elements and cultures throughout the centuries--yet still remain Jewish."

Also on interfaithfamily.com, Jim Keen proposed a kiwi instead of an artichoke, but that doesn’t seem to have caught on.

[Babushka recommends: How about a chocolate bunny or a brightly decorated egg, to welcome the honored gentile member of your family. Why denigrate their ancestral customs and beliefs if you want to be a truly "interfaith" family? Also, think how delighted you would be if some churches started holding "Christmas dinner for the interfaith family" Seriously, if you have a non-Jewish family member it is patronizing and insulting to treat them differently than any other guest.]

There are always one-off experiments, such as Rabbi Paul Kipnes in southern California who four years ago put a football, a history book and a corkscrew on his Seder plate. You’ll have to check out this Daily News piece by Brad Greenberg for the full scoop [Actually don't bother, it's just another stupid gimmick that everyone has already forgotten].

Hard to top, however, is the Progressive Jewish Alliance, which last year put together a “Food Desert Seder Plate” that banished the original arrangement altogether, replacing it with items symbolizing the lack of access to fresh, healthy food in many low-income neighborhoods (see photo above).

A rotten piece of lettuce illustrates that inner-city grocery stores often carry only spoiled produce. A potato chip instead of the boiled potato in the “karpas” space indicates that high-fat potato chips are cheaper and easier to find than fresh potatoes.

[Babushka recommends: how about these compassionate elites delivering grocery essentials and fresh, nutricious food to needy families or contribute to a local food pantry or soup kitchen, instead of putting on a silly and useless display that accomplishes nothing and helps no one? The haggadah says, "Let all who are hungry come and eat," it doesn't say "Let all who have food, go hungry."]

And then, there is this: Sickest idea for a Passover seder EVER.

Read more at JTA.org.

Babushka understands that every family has its own customs and traditions in addition to the usual Passover rituals, and some new customs such as the Miriam's Cup add to the rich and beautiful experience.

However, some of the innovations mentioned here are just plain silly, patronizing, and downright ridiculous. Babushka sincerely hopes that these commemorations are held on some day other than actual Passover.

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