With Passover being celebrated this week, I'd like to share with you my essay that was previously published in The Jewish Book Council blog:
It’s breakfast at Club Med in
I
approach the Chef-de-Village and ask
for a secluded spot where my family and another Jewish couple we’ve met here could
conduct a pre-sunset ceremony. He points to a beautiful thatched-roof area over
a dance floor, facing the sea. “Anything else I can do?” he asks.
“A bottle of sweet red wine, please?” Besides the box of matzos and a silver kiddush cup, I packed a dozen Haggadahs and baby-blue
yarmulkes stamped with the date of our youngest daughter’s bat-mitzvah. I write
down my recipe for charoset, a
chopped mix of peeled apples, walnuts, pecans and dates, all flavored with
cinnamon, honey and red wine.
Moments later, I am surprised to hear him over the PA
announcing that all who wish to participate in a Seder, should meet at five
o’clock at the designated area.
I cringe and glance around at the crowd, busy picking
from mounds of fried bacon and pork sausages. Is someone cracking a comment
about the invasion of the Hebs? No one seems to pay attention, and I decide
that throughout history, Jews in far more dire conditions managed to celebrate
Passover. So will my family, down to the lengthy reading of the Haggadah, the
yearly retelling of the Israelites’ exodus from
At lunch, a
sous-chef presents me with an industrial-size baking tray filled with charoset. Imagining that most of this
huge quantity will be baked in tomorrow’s pies, I dip a spoon into the mix. The
familiar taste of Passover festivity is already inside me. “May I also have a
plate with a hard-boiled egg, a lamb bone, horseradish, and sprigs of parsley?”
I ask, describing the traditional Passover plate that contains the symbols of
liberation of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. “And a cup of salt water?”
At five o’clock we arrive at the dance platform, carrying
my Passover paraphernalia. To my annoyance someone must have double-booked the
place, as dozens of his guests, dressed for a pre-dinner party are hanging
about. “Now we must go look for another quiet spot,” I mutter, and go search
for the sous-chef to locate my tray
of charoset and Passover plate.
In a cluster of people, I spot the couple we have invited
and wave.
As they wave back, some guests turn toward me, smiling. Only
then it hits me: All these people are here for my little Seder!
As my husband counts them as they stream in: a hundred
and forty. We order more bottles of wine and crates of glassware from the
kitchen. We place the Seder plate in the center of a table covered with a white
tablecloth and dedicate my kiddush cup for Elijah. We break my matzos into the
smallest pieces, and ladle charoset onto
serving plates.
Then we distribute the twelve Haggadahs—the story of
Passover told in biblical Hebrew. I watch as Jews from South American countries
speaking Spanish and Portuguese, Jews from
I examine the men’s heads covered with baseball caps,
dinner napkins, and my dozen yarmulkes in baby-blue like the undulating sea beyond.
For one hour, strangers to one another, we are connected by one culture and
unite through the ancient language of our ancestors in a tradition that
transcends all geo-political barriers, that has stood up to centuries of
persecutions, pogroms, and repeated attempts at our annihilation.
“Next year in
# # #
Novelist Talia Carner is formerly the publisher of Savvy Woman magazine and a lecturer
at international women’s economic forums. She is a committed supporter of global
human rights and has spearheaded projects centered on the subjects of female
plight and women’s activism. Her five novels have been hailed for exposing
society’s ills, the latest of which is THE THIRD DAUGHTER (HarperCollins,
September 2019.)
Talia
Carner has given over 400 keynote speeches and over 300 Zoom presentations
about the social issues behind her novels to civic, educational and religious
organizations. She lives in New York and Florida.
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