#passover 5784

[saltchipfishshop]

First seder: make a lovely frangipane tart

Second seder: unleash a plague of tiny marzipan frogs

[saltchipfishshop]

I completed my annual tradition of making a shlissel challah, a challah loaf in the shape of a key traditionally made the Shabbat after Passover.

Shlissel challah is supposed to represent the key to the promised land, and bring good luck. This year I can’t help but also think of the symbolism keys hold to Palestinians forced out of their homes in the Nakba and denied the right to return.

Next year in a free Palestine. 🕊🗝🍉

[paulinedorchester]

Passover, 1945: There's still a war on

From Hannen Swaffer's column in The People's issue of May 6th (just two days before V-E Day):

(Images ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.)

[paulinedorchester]

Passover, 1945: Topicality remains easy to find

Letter to the editor of the Evening News (Edinburgh), published on March 24th:

On March 28th, the Manchester Evening News offered this:

And on the same day, there was this in the Belfast News-Letter:

(Images ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.)

[paulinedorchester]

Passover, 1945: There are still troops serving in England, and they still need your support

(Above, from The Jewish Chronicle, February 23rd.)

And they received support across the country:

(From the March 2nd, 9th, and 16th issues of The JC.)

There was also much coverage in the general press (the following 6 images are ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved.) From the Bury Free Press, April 6th:

And from the Market Harborough Advertiser, April 8th:

(Rabbi Louis Milgrom was born in Poland in 1909 and came to the U.S. in 1921. In 1930 he graduated from the Lewis Institute, in Chicago (which merged with the Armour Institute in 1941 to form the Illinois Institute of Technology, where my father taught for nearly three decades). He received his ordination four years later from Hebrew Theological College, which at that time was also located in Chicago and is now in Skokie. This, combined with his wartime membership in the Rabbinical Council of America, tells us that he was Orthodox. Prior to joining up in 1943 he worked for the Joliet Jewish Federation, in Chicago's southwest suburbs. After the war he directed the Hillel chapter serving the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and later taught at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He also seems to have undergone a change in his theological outlook: when he died in 2004, the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly took out an obituary for him. Such a shift was fairly unusual then and even more so now.)

The time lag in the reporting above can probably be attributed to a weekly publication schedule. In Plymouth, the Western Morning News was on top of things on March 29th:

And events in Birmingham received up-to-the-minute attention from three local dailies (top to bottom, the Birmingham Post, March 27th, the Evening Despatch, March 28th, and the Birmingham Gazette, March 29th):

Meanwhile, The Jewish Chronicle published the following letter of thanks on March 23rd:

[paulinedorchester]

Passover, 1945: In the U.K., some evacuees still haven't been able to go home.

(From The Jewish Chronicle, February 2nd, 1945.)

[paulinedorchester]

For Passover:

We need a palate-cleanser before proceeding to some fairly serious stuff. Here it is:

Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will enter into them, I will give thanks unto the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter into it. I will give thanks unto Thee, for Thou hast answered me, and art become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected is become the chief corner-stone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice in it and be glad.

— Psalm 118:19-24, a text that is associated with many occasions in Judaism, including Passover.

Sholom Secunda (1894-1974) was a Ukrainian-born American composer and conductor who is is most widely remembered today for his work in the Yiddish theater, and in particular for two songs: "Bei mir bistu sheyn," which was famously covered by the Andrews Sisters, and "Dona, dona," which was covered by both Theodore Bikel and Joan Baez (both of whom seem to have been laboring under the delusion that this was a genuine, copyright-free folk song). However, his output also included a fairly large quantity of liturgical music. Secunda had been a boy cantor in Ukraine; as an adult, he served as music director at two Brooklyn synagogues: the East Midwood Jewish Center, beginning in about 1930, and a bit later at the larger and, in its time, highly influential Brooklyn Jewish Center, which from 1943 to 1945 employed a young cantor named Reuben Ticker.

Richard Tucker (né Reuben Ticker; 1913-1975) was one of the pre-eminent operatic tenors of the mid 20th century. His rise to prominence in that field put paid to his cantorial career (because there aren't enough hours in the day), but he returned to his original vocation on a regular basis, often singing settings that Secunda composed specifically for him. They collaborated on several recording projects; this one was released in 1962, but the music dates from about a decade before that, so this isn't that far post-war!

The choir here is apparently a pick-up group; the organist is Alexander D. Richardson. Both Secunda and Tucker grew up in Yiddish-speaking households, and the Hebrew pronunciation here reflects that.

[paulinedorchester]

Passover, 1945: On the air

Above, from the Chicago Sun, March 24th. As important as this was, it wasn't the only thing to listen to during Passover, as another Chicago publication, The Sentinel, noted in its March 29th issue:

The Eternal Light began during the previous summer. As far as I'm aware, it was the first regularly-scheduled English-language Jewish program in broadcasting history. It expanded to television in 1952 and continued production until 1989. The music director, Milton Katims, later became conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, a position he held for 22 years

Those were national programs. Strictly local was this Indianapolis broadcast, noted in the Indiana Jewish Post & Opinion on March 23rd:

Meanwhile, in the U.K., the Home Service carried something familiar: a 15-minute broadcast featuring the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, a cantor, and a choir, announced in the March 23rd issue of Radio Times.

Unfortunately, none of it was carried on the Forces Programme.

Here is some of what Dr. Hertz said, as transcribed in The Jewish Chronicle for April 6th: