Spring is the time of nature’s reawakening, when we are treated to so many vibrant and beautiful colors and shades. Spring is also when Jewish communities around the world celebrate the unique and important holiday of Passover. So why don’t we combine the two and make a festive Passover postcard with a spring butterfly against flowery background?
In making our postcard, we can unleash our imaginations! There are so many beautiful butterflies in the world – it is impossible to count them all. And there are no strict rules in art projects, so feel free to be creative, dear young artists. But, if you want to try and make your butterfly look like a real one, you will need to choose a design you can repeat, as both wings of a butterfly are the same in design and texture.
So, gather all the brown, black, blue, yellow, purple, green, pink and other colors of Plasticine you have at home. You will also need toothpicks. Now let’s get started!
1. Take brown Plasticine and make the butterfly’s head, thorax (torso) and abdomen.
2. Put all the butterfly body parts together. Make black antennae (a butterfly’s “whiskers”). After that, make and attach blue eyes and a pink mouth.
3. Take yellow Plasticine and make one wing, attach it to the body on the top left side. Make one more wing – purple – and attach it underneath the yellow wing.
4. Use your fingers to make the wings smooth.
5. Now make and attach identical wings to the right top and bottom sides. Make them smooth, too.
6. Make beautiful ornaments for the top left yellow wing using, for example, green, blue, purple, red and pink colors, just like we did. You can use other colors, if you’d like.
7. Repeat the same design on the top right yellow wing.
8. Using the same technique, make colorful ornaments for the two bottom wings on both sides. You may use yellow, orange and blue colors to do that. Now your butterfly is ready!
To make the postcard, you can put your butterfly in front of some flowers, attaching it using a piece of wire or a thin stick, and take a picture of it with this flowery background. You can then print out the image, and you will have your own beautiful Passover postcard with a fluttering butterfly.
Happy Passover, dear Jewish Independent readers – to you and your families!
Lana Lagooncais a graphic designer, author and illustrator (lunart.ca). At curlyorli.com, there are more free lessons, along with information about Curly Orli merchandise.
The website haggadot.com offers numerous template options.
The Hebrew word haggadah means narration or telling. As the Passover seder’s instruction manual, the Haggadah is perhaps the most important tool for fulfilling the Passover mitzvah of telling the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt – a mitzvah that is mentioned six times in the Torah.
The Rambam (Maimonides) in his Mishneh Torah explains that relating the miracles and wonders that were done for our ancestors in Egypt on Passover night is a positive commandment, and that it is a mitzvah to inform our children about it. Many interpret this to mean that telling the Passover story is actually two mitzvot: a mitzvah to tell the story among adults and a mitzvah to teach children about the story.
ArtScroll and Maxwell House have done their parts to make a simple seder manual accessible and inexpensive. But sometimes just reciting the words of the seder isn’t enough to engage seder participants – or even to help them understand the Passover story.
“What I learned is that my family had never really understood the service they had been using for many, many years,” said
Barbara Bayer of Overland Park, Kan., who about 30 years ago decided to write a Haggadah, which she continues to revise each year. “I went to simple sources that told the story simply and succinctly and the family loved it and still does.”
Making your own Haggadah is not as complicated as one might think. For starters, there are many web platforms that allow you to create a customized seder manual by providing curated sources from across the Jewish community. Haggadot.com, for instance, offers readings, artwork and video clips to enliven the seder. The clips can be assembled in one of the website’s templates.
Other sites, such as livelyseders.com, allow users to download an English translation of the complete traditional Ashkenazi Haggadah text, which can be cut and pasted to create your own piece. Jewishfreeware.org carries a range of editions of Haggadot, each one directed to specific interests and needs, in terms of the Haggadah’s length and rituals of choice. All the files are downloadable and some are editable.
Once you’ve found your base, personalizing the Haggadah for your seder experience can be loads of fun and really creative, according to those who do it.
Renee Goldfarb of Solon, Ohio, said one year she set up a laptop, projector and screen at the Passover table and showed a relevant video for each of the 15 steps of the seder.
Suzanne Levin-Lapides, on the other hand, compiled her family Haggadah from the texts of various seders for women she had attended in her Baltimore community, adding an orange to her seder plate as a symbol of feminism, as well as the inclusion of LGBT individuals and other marginalized groups within the Jewish community.
At the Katz family home in Kemp Mill, Md., the Passover seder has been turned into a play by their 12-year-old daughter, Abigail.
One look, and it’s clear – it’s springtime in Vancouver. It is no accident that Passover is celebrated at this time of year. (photo from Alex Kliner)
This year, Passover begins on Friday night, April 22, and continues through Saturday, April 30. The first seder is on Shabbat and the second is on Saturday evening. What is the significance of this?
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam or Maimonides) was born on the eve of Passover in 1135 in Cordoba, Spain. He writes that, on the night of the 15th of Nissan, it is a positive commandment of the Torah to relate the miracles that transpired with our forefathers in Egypt. For it is written, “Remember this day on which you went out of Egypt.” The meaning of “remember” here is similar to that which is written about Shabbat: “Remember the day of Shabbat.”
The Rambam explains, at the beginning of the Laws of Shabbat, that resting from labor on the seventh day is a positive commandment, for it is written, “On the seventh day you shall rest.” The fact that the Rambam begins the laws with the positive command indicates that the main aspect of Shabbat observance lies in the positive aspect. Shabbat is a weekly occurrence, when we take a break from our work and enjoy time with family and friends at home and in synagogue, as we focus on the spiritual aspects of the day.
By connecting the tale of the Exodus on 15 Nissan to the remembrance of Shabbat, the Rambam is indicating that, with regards to relating the events of the Exodus, the main aspect is the positive step of becoming free. So, the obligation to relate the story of the Exodus involves not only the recalling of our release from slavery, but the recounting of how we became free. The Haggadah adds that an individual is obligated to feel as if they themselves had just gone out of Egypt.
As Passover approaches, the Torah instructs us that this festival of liberation should always be celebrated in the spring – Chodesh Ha’aviv, the month of spring. It relates that, on the day of Rosh Chodesh Nissan (the head of the month of Nissan), two weeks before the deliverance from Egyptian enslavement, we received the first mitzvah: sanctification of the new moon, whereby the first day of each month is sanctified as Rosh Chodesh, in conjunction with the molad (rebirth) of the moon as it reappears as a narrow crescent.
Together with this came other details of our Jewish annual calendar. Our calendar is based on the lunar year (12 lunar months), coupled with an adjustment to the solar year by the insertion of an additional month every two or three years, making a leap year, consisting of 13 months, as we just marked with the months of Adar I and Adar II. In this way, the accumulated lag of the lunar year relative to the solar year, 11.5 days, is absorbed. This requirement and the necessity for Nissan to fall in the spring, the time of the Exodus, is vitally important, so all our other Jewish festivals also occur in their proper season; for example, that Sukkot takes place in autumn.
On Rosh Chodesh Nissan, G-d instructed us, the Jewish nation, about the Passover sacrifice and the laws of the festival of Pesach, which is also known as the Festival of our Liberation. This was deliverance from our physical slavery from ancient Egypt. However, given that the instructions in the Torah are eternal and valid at all times and wherever Jews live, in every generation, the Festival of our Liberation is also freedom in a spiritual sense; that we might be liberated from our limitations and leap over our everyday shackles.
How? By focusing our energy on our being free and thanking G-d for allowing us to be able to use our minds to release ourselves from any obstacles we may face. Also, by remembering that G-d loves us so much that He Himself redeemed us, not wanting to send any angels to do this precious job for His suffering children. Due to His great love for us, He took us out in the spring, when the weather was favorable.
This Passover, in the Lower Mainland, we are fortunate to be able to see the renewal in the earth, as trees and flowers bloom and fruits blossom, the rainy weather that we have endured for months changes to sunshine and baby birds and animals are born.
May we enjoy this special Passover, which begins and ends on Shabbat, with family, friends and guests at our seders, yom tov meals and synagogue or Chabad House attendance. May G-d grant us, as the Haggadah concludes, “Next Year in Yerushalayim,” with the imminent coming of Moshiach.
Wishing everyone a special Shabbat shalom and a kosher and happy Passover!
Esther Taubyis a local educator, writer and counselor. This article is based on talks that were given by the Lubavitcher Rebbe z”l.
Another version of orange-glazed sponge cake, minus the Sabra. (photo from littlemisscelebration.com)
Sponge cake. It’s an integral part of Pesach for many people, even though there is no special plate for it, and no bracha said over it. Sponge cake comes in two types – angel food and true sponge.
Angel food cake has cream of tartar, an acid ingredient, which used to be combined with baking soda and salt to make a form of baking powder before baking powder was produced commercially. Cream of tartar is what gives an angel food cake its white color, and it also creates an acid reaction in the batter.
Sponge cake has a more delicate cousin referred to as sunshine cake. Most people, however, refer to the Passover version as sponge cake. Sponge cake is usually baked without shortening or butter or baking powder but with lots of eggs. Its lightness and texture come from careful handling and the air beaten into the eggs. Recipes with nine to 12 eggs are not uncommon.
The aim of making a sponge cake is to beat the maximum amount of air into the yolks and whites while handling them as little as possible. An electric or rotary beater gives better results than whipping by hand. Since there is no baking powder, the main rising factor is the air plus steam.
In making a sponge cake, it is important that the yolks are beaten until light and thick, and the whites must be beaten until they are stiff and glossy. Essences such as vanilla lemon or orange rind add special flavor to a sponge cake.
The best pan for a sponge cake is a tube pan with a removable rim, thus the central tube gives support to the batter.
In Israel, many old-timers use a wonder pot (in Hebrew, sir pella) about which I wrote a cookbook in the 1970s for people without an oven (see jewishindependent.ca/cookbook-resurfaces). A wonder pot is basically a sponge cake pan that sits on a coned base and then has a lid with strategic holes around its top to let out the steam. It is placed atop a stove burner for baking. Last year, in the weeks leading up to Passover, one of the large supermarkets in Jerusalem carried three different sizes of wonder pots (dairy, meat and parve) so you didn’t have to kasher your oven before the holiday.
A regular sponge cake pan should be ungreased. A preheated 350˚F oven is the best heat for baking a sponge cake. When the cake is done, the pan should be inverted to cool for about an hour and a half. Before removing the cake from the pan, the sides should be loosened with a knife. It is best not to try to cut a fresh sponge cake with a knife; rather, use a divider with prongs instead, and slide it back and forth gently.
In Let My People Eat, Zell Schulman offers these additional tips to keep your sponge cake from falling: have the eggs at room temperature and use only large eggs; don’t add sugar until the egg whites begin to hold small, soft peaks; beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry; and never make a sponge cake on a wet day.
Here are three different kinds of sponge cake.
ORANGE-GLAZED SABRA SPONGE CAKE
1/2 cup unsalted parve margarine or 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp oil 2/3 cup sugar 1 tsp orange rind 5 tbsp Sabra liqueur 3 separated eggs 2 tbsp sugar 1/2 cup potato starch 4 tsp orange rind
Preheat oven to 325˚F. In a bowl, cream margarine or oil and sugar. Add one teaspoon orange rind, two tablespoons of the Sabra liqueur and the egg yolks and blend.
In another bowl, beat egg whites until stiff, gradually adding two tablespoons sugar. Add to creamed mixture gently, then stir in potato starch.
Pour into a greased tube pan. Bake for 45 minutes to one hour. Let cool for at least an hour then gently remove to a plate.
Meantime, in a bowl, combine orange juice, the other three tablespoons of liqueur and the orange rind. While cake is still hot, punch holes around it with a toothpick and pour the glaze over it.
MIRIAM’S BANANA CAKE This is from one of my close friends in Overland Park, Kan., who, at 88, is still a really creative cook.
7 eggs, separated 1/4 tsp salt 1 cup mashed bananas 3/4 cup potato starch 1 cup sugar 1 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350˚F. In a bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry, then refrigerate.
In another bowl, beat egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored. Gradually add sugar and salt, beating continually. Fold in bananas and potato starch. Fold in egg whites then nuts.
Turn into an ungreased tube pan and bake for 45-50 minutes. Invert pan to cool.
PAN DI SPAGNA This recipe comes from The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews by Edda Servi Machlin. Pan di Spagna (bread of Spain) is also called pasta reale and was made in the matzah bakery with the same flour that was used for the matzot.
6 eggs, separated 1/8 tsp salt 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup fresh orange juice 1/2 cup Passover cake meal 1/4 cup potato starch freshly grated rind of 1 large lemon
Preheat oven to 350˚F. In a small bowl, beat egg whites with salt until soft peaks form.
In a larger bowl, place egg yolks, sugar and orange juice and beat until frothy and lemon-colored.
Combine the cake meal with potato starch and gradually add to the egg yolk mixture, beating until the batter is smooth. Add the lemon rind and fold in the egg whites.
Pour into an ungreased sponge cake pan with removable bottom and bake for one hour. Remove from oven and invert over a wire rack to cool before unmolding.
Sybil Kaplanis a journalist, foreign correspondent, lecturer, food writer and book reviewer who lives in Jerusalem. She also does the restaurant features for janglo.net and leads weekly walks in English in Jerusalem’s market.
If you were rolling in money, what would you do with it? Would you build a town for yourself? That’s what Jan Zamoyski did.
As you approach the town’s main square, you might be inclined to think that someone has fooled with your itinerary. On first glance, it might well appear that somehow you have been detoured from Poland to Italy. Before you stands Zamosc, which can only be described as a stunning example of a planned, late-16th century Renaissance town. Designed by Italian architect Bernardo Morando, it follows the model of the citta ideale, or ideal town.
More than 400 brutal years have passed since the town’s inception. Yet, Zamosc has remarkably withstood the enormous devastation of the Second World War and the utilitarian, unesthetic architecture of the communist era. It largely retains its original layout, a large number of original buildings and fortifications.
Zamosc stands in southeast Poland, 142 miles (228 kilometres) from Warsaw. Zamoyski founded Zamosc on his own property in 1589. He was an intriguing character, an extremely wealthy and educated man who juggled a variety of careers, including in the military and politics. He was a hetman (head of the army) and a chancellor. His taste in things Italian probably began during his student days at the University of Padua.
A statute of Jan Zamoyski, founder of Zamosc. (photo by Tomasz Zugaj)
While he was an army man, Zamoyski’s focus in establishing Zamosc was seemingly more economic than military. It should be noted, however, that he did not forget to commission an imposing fortress and city ramparts.
Located on the trade route linking western and northern Europe with the Black Sea, Zamoyski envisioned Zamosc as a thriving trade centre. He invited Italian, Turkish and Dutch Jewish merchants to work and live in his new town. His liberal policy toward outsiders was likewise extended to Armenian, Greek and Scottish merchants, and to Ruthenes (Slavs of the Orthodox Church). His outreach to foreigners did not spring as much from liberality, as from a strong desire to see Zamosc succeed. At the time, all of the mentioned ethnic groups had reputations for jump-starting floundering economies.
Zamoyski’s concerns went beyond the economic, though. As an intellectual ruler who was likewise a devout Roman Catholic, he had an academy – located today at Academy and Perec Streets – a high court and a large church, which was originally dedicated to Saint Thomas the Apostle and the resurrection, but was elevated in 1992 to cathedral status, and an imposing palace centrally constructed. Altogether, Zamosc’s buildings reflect the idea that institutions should be in physical harmony with the residents of a town. Just as the organs of the body support the human being, so Zamosc’s institutions were designed to organically mesh with the populace.
As mentioned, when Zamoyski decided to build his town, he imported a skilled Italian architect. It seems clear, however, that the chancellor also considered Morando because of his sensitivity to Polish culture. Morando had already worked in Poland and had gained an appreciation of Polish life.
The 16th-century Great Market Square features colorful arcaded houses characteristic of Morando’s native Padua. These houses, located at the northern end of the square, were designated for the Armenian merchants, hence the street’s name, Ormianski.
The town’s 17th-century synagogue. (photo by Tomasz Zugaj)
In length and width, the square measures exactly 100 metres. It is here that the two main axes of the old town cross. The 600-metre longitudinal axis runs east to west: from Bastion No. 7 to the Zamoyski Palace. The 400-metre crosswise axis runs north to south, joining the Great Market Square to the two smaller market squares: Solny (this area, translated as the Salt Market, was assigned to Jewish merchants) and Wodny (translated as the Water Market). The original buildings in these smaller markets complemented those of the Great Market.
The town hall in particular was an enormous enterprise, taking nine years to complete (1591-1600). It was meant to draw attention. And, with its fan-shaped double staircase and imposing tower, it certainly achieved this purpose. During the early part of the construction work (1591-1593), Morando also served as the town mayor. His appointment ended before he was able to hang his name on the door of town hall’s mayoral offices.
In 1992, the town of Zamosc became a UNESCO World Heritage site. Hopefully, this award will help to preserve the beauty of this Renaissance town for years to come.
More on Zamosc
From July 11 to July 18, Zamosc is hosting the international folklore festival Eurofolk. About seven international carriers fly regularly between Vancouver and Warsaw.
Famous people who lived in Zamosc include L.L. Zamenhof, founder of Esperanto. He had the revolutionary idea that hatred would disappear if people spoke the same language. A revolutionary who was born in Zamosc was Rosa Luxemburg.
The old town of Zamosc stands largely intact. Humans fared far worse. For instance, the Jewish population, which had comprised almost half the city’s pre-Holocaust population (12,531), has vanished. Those who could, fled from the Nazis. Others were forced into a ghetto. In a series of four deportations, many Jews were sent to Belzec. Others were shot in marches and in roundups. As a reminder of the once-thriving Jewish community, visit the synagogue (9-11 Zamenhofa St.), which has been undergoing an extensive renovation project.
Deborah Rubin Fieldsis an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
Inside of Kadavumbagam Synagogue of Mattancherry, Cochin, facing what’s left of the women’s gallery. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)
In enormous and populous India, anonymity does not exist. And social or group orientation counts – in a big way. Ironically, this is apparent in laidback Kerala, a lush coastal farming state in the southwest of the country.
In Kerala, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus basically lived in harmony for years. Yet, within the region’s small Jewish community – often referred to as Cochin Jews, since almost all the Kerala synagogues were built in the kingdom of Cochin – differences have existed between the apparently ancient Malabar Jews, the Meshuhurarum, whose ancestors were reportedly freed slaves, and the Paradesi Jews, who arrived hundreds of years later. Frequently, the groups referred to each other, sometimes derogatorily, as Black Jews, Brown Jews or White Jews. Even today, when one talks with those involved in these communities, issues related to paternalism, land rights and misappropriation of property enter into the conversation.
How have these divisions expressed themselves? A sense of imbalance sneaks in when learning about the famous Tamil script copper plates. The area’s ruler, Bhaskara Ravi Varman, presented these special plates upon the Malabar Jews’ arrival in 1069 CE, although the Malabar Jews often claim they arrived in southern India with King Solomon’s merchants. The plates provide a detailed list of the elevated rights and privileges the sovereign bestowed upon his new residents.
Somehow or other, these important proofs of status are no longer in the possession of the Malabar Jews. Rather, they are reportedly held by the Paradesi Jews who arrived in the 16th century from Spanish, Portuguese, Iraqi, Yemenite and European lands. Just how the Paradesi came to control them is not spelled out in historical accounts of these communities. It is simply presented as fact.
In her autobiography Ruby of Cochin: An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers (1993), Ruby Daniels (1912-2002) and Prof. Barbara Johnson recall Daniels’ experience at the Paradesi Synagogue, “our family had to sit separately from the others … the men in the azarah (entrance room) and the women in the separate building just in front of the synagogue. We could see everything from there, but it was a shame for us.”
Daniels also relates that, around 1950, a mixed couple wanted to marry in the Paradesi Synagogue. “The White Jews … opposed the marriage … [so] they had the wedding in Bombay.” And, “these Paradesis didn’t marry among the Jews of the other seven synagogues. Sometimes, they called the others ‘Black Jews’ though in fact most of them were not very black in color. And, sometimes, they spoke of them as converts and slaves, even though these Jews had been in Kerala hundreds of years before them.”
Still, the Malabar Jews managed to live a peaceful existence, working largely as shop owners. Over time, they spread out to five different Kerala towns and villages: Cochin, Ernakulam, Parur (also written Paravur), Chendamangalam and Mala. For Zionist rather than antisemitic reasons, the Jewish population, especially the Malabar Jewish community, resettled in Israel in the 1950s. The cemeteries and the eight or nine synagogues they built in the 1500s through the 1600s were left behind.
Today, the Malabar Jewish community’s presence in southern India is still felt, albeit not strongly. The Kerala governing body took upon itself to restore the community’s Chendamangalam Synagogue and Parur Synagogue. These centres of former Jewish life are now museums. However, some empty Jewish institutions are now being used for other purposes, such as offices, storerooms, handicraft and antique shops.
While five aging Paradesi members (and outside sponsors) maintain their synagogue and cemetery, this is definitely not the case in the Malabar Jewish cemetery in Mala. A sizable portion of it has been parceled off to build a stadium, which, in turn, might be converted into the K. Karunakaran Sports Academy, and graves have been desecrated. Significantly, this land grab violates the cemetery and synagogue preservation agreement the Malabar Jews signed with the Mala panchayat (the elective village council in India) before making aliyah in 1955. Villas now stand on the northern edge of the cemetery, but these were built on land the Malabar Jews sold to locals, so that they would have enough money for the move to Israel.
Mala Jewish cemetery, one of three graves left intact. The villa can be seen in the background. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)
How did the cemetery disrepair come about? According to a professor emeritus, historian and social activist who goes by the name C. Karmachandran: “The Jews [who emigrated] from Mala could not visit and monitor the developments in Mala due to the social and political problems they faced in the infant nation of Israel. I understand … Indian Jewish immigrants were given only exit visas, with which it was not possible to return to India for a visit … only [in] the 1990s, it became easy for the Indian Jews to visit.”
He continued, “From the side of the local authority, their initial enthusiasm to conserve the Jewish monuments began to decline in course of time…. It may be noted that there was no purposeful destruction at that time, but there was serious neglect. There was nobody in the locality to point out its historical significance as we do now. Whoever came to power … found the vast area of the Jewish cemetery ‘ripe’ for their ambition to make money in the pretext of useful developmental projects.”
According to Karmachandran, “the Mala Jews in Israel seemed to be weak in protecting their interest in Mala cemetery. Even today that is the case … there is no effective Jew[ish] organization in Kerala to approach a court of law … the Paradesi … have no interest or influence beyond … Jew Town. They don’t maintain much contact with the remaining Malabari Jews who have a strength of around 25 members in its fold.”
While Kerala has a Hindu majority, the area around the Mala Jewish cemetery is currently 75% Muslims and 25% Christians, so sectarian politics has become an issue in the cemetery’s preservation, as well. An anonymous local source stated, “political parties who want to get the votes of Muslims will keep mum because [those who] speak for the Jewish monuments are being pictured as anti-Muslims and agents of Israel.”
Importantly, Karmachandran and other Kerala Christians, Muslims and Hindus have mobilized themselves to form the Heritage Protection Society, Mala. The group’s goal is to save what they consider not just their former neighbors’ Jewish heritage, but what they maintain is their common Indian heritage. To assist in the preservation project, contact Karmachandran at [email protected].
More on Jewish India
Oh, Lovely Parrot is a composite of musical pieces sung in the Malayalam language by Kerala Jewish women. As part of its digitized Jewish music conservation project, the Israel National Library (in collaboration with Hebrew University) offers free listening from its website. The online Jewish art collection of the library also has about 200 of Zev Radovan’s 1995 black-and-white photos of religious objects from the Malabar Jewish community.
A few years ago, Essie Sassoon, Bala Menon and Kenny Salem published Spice & Kosher: Exotic Cuisine of the Cochin Jews. Also, in Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York, there is a section devoted to “The Three Jewish Communities of India.” Finally, in his book Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World, Rabbi Gil Marks (z”l) devoted space to presenting a number of curried vegetarian Indian dishes.
Reconstructed Malabar synagogues are on view in different locations around Israel. Over a period of several years, Jerusalem’s Israel Museum restored the interior of Cochin’s Kadavumbagam Synagogue. It was opened to the public in 1996. The heichal (ark) and tebah (podium) originally came from the Parur Synagogue. Oddly enough, since the 1950s, the synagogue’s original heichal has been in use at Nehalim, an Israeli moshav composed of Orthodox German Jews. Moshav Netivim has an active synagogue and the Cochin Jewish Heritage Centre with artifacts of the Malabar Jewish community.
Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
“The Last Supper,” by Juan de Juanes (also known as Vicente Juan Masip), circa 1562, housed in Prado Museum. (photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Nearly every year around the time of the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter, theologians and historians start to ask the same question. Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Passover seder?
“It is all very mysterious,” said Rabbi Raymond Apple, rabbi emeritus of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Australia.
Let’s start with the facts. There are four accounts in the New Testament that refer to the Last Supper with reference to the Passover holiday. They are Mark 14:12-31, Matthew 26:17-30, Luke 22:1-19 and John 13:1-30. But Mark, Matthew and Luke are synoptic Gospels, which means they are closely related and best studied together, making the three Gospels – according to Jonathan Klawans, a professor in Boston University’s department of religion – “one testimony, which was then copied twice.”
“Mark … fashioned and inserted a single ‘Passover’ paragraph (14:12-16) … between what we identify as 14:11-17,” explained author Michael J. Cook, a professor of Judeo-Christian studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “So, the entire problem resides with Mark’s text.”
According to Mark’s text, Jesus prepared for the Last Supper on “the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb.”
We know that the Passover lamb was sacrificed on the 14th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan, and consumed by Jewish families either on that night or the onset of the 15th day of Nissan.
Klawans notes that there are those who can cite no fewer than 14 parallels between the account described in Mark and the modern-day Passover seder. These include the bread and wine, the hymn or blessings that were recited and the reclining diners. Jews at their seders discuss the symbolism of the Passover meal; Jesus at his Last Supper discussed the symbolism of the wine (“This is the blood of my covenant”) and the bread (“Take, eat; this is my body”).
Nonetheless, scholars Klawans, Apple and Cook all do not believe that Jesus’ Last Supper was a Passover seder, for several reasons.
For starters, the parallels that can be drawn seem to be those that are general, rather than decisive. It would not be uncanny for Jesus to eat a meal with his disciples in Jerusalem. During that meal, they would have reclined, broken bread, drank wine and possibly even sang a hymn.
“Such behavior may have been characteristic of the Passover meal, but it is equally characteristic of practically any Jewish meal [at the time],” said Klawans.
Some key Passover elements are missing from the Last Supper: the Passover lamb, references to matzah (unleavened bread), the bitter herbs, charoset, the four cups of wine, the recitation of the Four Questions and the narrative retelling of the Passover story.
Moreover, the parallels drawn between the Last Supper and the Passover seder ritual we celebrate today assume that the seder as we know it was celebrated in Jesus’ day. But this is not the case. Nearly all scholars agree that the modern Passover Haggadah and the rabbinic accounts of Passover traditions all emanate from after the destruction of the first Jewish Temple in the year 70 CE. The Gospels date Jesus’ ministry from around 26 CE to early 37 CE, with Jesus’ death coming between 30 and 33 CE.
“At that time, the core element of the Passover observance had been Jerusalem’s sacrificial cult, from 621 BCE up until 70 CE,” said Cook. “Jewish families brought lambs for sacrifice on the Temple altar as biblically prescribed.… For the ceremony, the kohanim (Jewish priests) conducted the sacrificial rite. Then families retrieved and consumed their meat as part of their Passover meal, which also included unleavened bread and bitter herbs. The Passover meals Jesus experienced in his lifetime would have had to be along these Temple-centred lines.”
Klawans said many people assume that Jesus ate matzah at his Last Supper because Catholics eat wafers as their Eucharist bread. The custom of using wafers, however, does not date back as far as one might think, but rather only to medieval times. The oldest customs in Orthodox Christian churches involve bread, and the New Testament describes bread, not unleavened bread.
“There is no reason to think the bread was matzah unless that was specified,” Klawans said.
Additionally, Klawans said it is impractical for Jesus’ crucifixion to have taken place on Passover, as the Sanhedrin (Jewish High Court of 70 elders) would not have worked on the yom tov, which was already one of the Israelites’ most important pilgrimage festivals.
Pioneer Women meeting for the Hadassah Bazaar, 1958. (photo from JWB fonds, JMABC L.12594)
If you know someone in this photo, please help the JI fill the gaps of its predecessor’s (the Jewish Western Bulletin’s) collection at the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. by contacting [email protected] or 604-257-5199. To find out who has been identified in the photos, visit jewishmuseum.ca/blog.
1. Take brown Plasticine and make the butterfly’s head, thorax (torso) and abdomen.
5. Now make and attach identical wings to the right top and bottom sides. Make them smooth, too.
