THE YANKEE AT THE SEDER: What Difference Does the Color of a Coat Make?

THE YANKEE AT THE SEDER is a new children's picture book that I reviewed for OperationSupportJewsintheMilitary.com. The book is written by Elka Weber and illustrated by Adam Gustavson.

What makes this book particularly interesting is that it is based on a true story of a Union soldier sharing the seder with a Confederate family right after General Lee surrendered to General Grant on April 9, 1965.

At the seder that begins the week-long holiday of Pesach (Passover) we recount the story of the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt. Since the Civil War was fought in part over the issue of slavery, how amazing it must have been for this Union soldier to celebrate Pesach with a Confederate family!

In the book the 10-year-old son says:

"Mother," I whispered. "Mother, how could you let a Yankee into our house?"

"Jacob, every year we begin the seder the same way. We say, 'All who are hungry, let them come and eat; all who are in need, let them join us for the Passover meal.' A hungry man needing a seder has come to our home. Would you send him away for wearing a blue coat?"

I hope those of you reading this blog post will think of our military personnel in harm's way and contribute to one or more military-support organizations. If you don't have a favorite one of your own, see some organizations at MrsLieutenant.com.

At the end of THE YANKEE AT THE SEDER there's a section "The Real Story." According to Weber: "During the war, six thousand to nine thousand Jews fought for the North and about two thousand Jews fought for the South. Nearly one-third of all adult Jewish men in America fought in the Civil War."

You can read my review of THE YANKEE AT THE SEDER.

P.S. If you want to know more about the holiday of Pesach (this year the first seder is the evening of April 8th), read this Pesach chapter from the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION that I co-wrote with Rabbi Karen L. Fox.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. She also blogs at PZ the Do-Gooder Scrooge and Operation Support Jews in the Military, and she is the co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show Your Military Life. Her company Miller Mosaic LLC builds call-to-action websites for book authors and small businesses.

Our First Hosted Seder -– in Germany in 1971

Now that I have a moment to rest after cleaning, preparing and cooking for Pesach, I’m looking at the same April 11, 1971, letter I quoted in my last post.

The first seder of that year -- April 9, 1971 -- my husband and I were at the Jewish chaplain’s quarters. The second seder I hosted the other Jewish couple in my husband’s unit and a Jewish bachelor who I remember to this day.

Henry Einstein (yes, all the Einsteins from that part of Germany were related) had gotten out of 1930s Germany in time by being sent to relatives in New York. His father had died in Auschwitz and his mother had somehow survived by claiming French citizenship. (This had something to do with to being born in the Alsace-Lorraine area during one of its periods as French-owned rather than German-owned.)

Henry had enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War II and had served at the Nuremberg Trials for Nazi war criminals as a court clerk working with Robert M.W. Kempner. Herr Kempner was an anti-Nazi official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior who had been fired from his job early in the Nazi reign. He and his wife fled to the United States after this dismissal, and he later served as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials. Kempner’s son Lucian was my husband’s civilian boss in Munich.

Henry didn’t leave Germany after the Nuremberg Trials were over. He stayed in Germany working as a civilian for the U.S. Army, as did many other German Jews who had gotten out of Germany in time and then returned with the U.S. Army.

Here are parts of my April 11, 1971, letter home:

“We sang a lot of songs as Henry knows them from his childhood here in Germany. The army provided kosher chickens and wine to the Jewish chaplains to pass out for people having seders… We had soup and gefitle fish provided by the Jewish Welfare Board, egg barley I ordered from the U.S., plus honied sweet potatoes and salad. .. I made charoset from a recipe in one of my Jewish books. Mitch unshelled the walnuts with his hammer.”

I had just turned 23 when Mitch and I hosted our first seder – a long time ago. And each Pesach since then I have truly enjoyed our kosher seders no matter how much work leads up to them.

This year, though, I owe a thank you to The Wall Street Journal for solving a mystery. My husband went to numerous stores in Los Angeles and none had pareve kosher for Passover stick margarine. The Journal’s Friday front-page story explained the mystery under the headline “What's Different This Passover? No Margarine.” Indeed, this year there was a shortage of pareve kosher for Passover stick margarine.

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Celebrating Pesach as a “Mrs. Lieutenant” in Germany

Yesterday I was actually nostalgic for a time when I was a “Mrs. Lieutenant.” That time was the first week of May in 1972 right before my husband got out of the army.

Before leaving our three-bedroom quarters in the U.S. Army’s Perlacher Forst housing section of Munich, Germany, we had to pass inspection for our quarters. This meant that everything – and I mean everything – had to be spotless. Not just spotless on the outside, but spotless on the inside too.

We did what most officers did – hired a special cleaning team to ensure that we would pass inspection. The team descended like a host of locusts – and our quarters easily passed inspection. Worth every penny, and I’ve never again seen anyone clean that thoroughly.

I thought of the cleaning team yesterday as I determinedly tried to ensure that my stove was spotless inside and out. Of course, my cleaning for Pesach this year and for many years before has been much easier than the first time I cleaned for Pesach – in the spring of 1971. No automatically defrosted refrigerators and no self-cleaning ovens then. (The army cleaning team also didn’t have the advantages that these modern engineering marvels offer.)

Here’s what I wrote home from Munich on April 11, 1971:

“Thursday night Mitch and I cleaned all evening. We scrubbed the refrigerator, cleaned the over (we had cleaned the top last weekend), cleaned the food shelves, etc. At 10:30 I was still washing the kitchen floor. Then we searched for chometz with a candle but couldn’t find the blessings to say as our Haggadah didn’t have it in so we said approximately what we knew the blessings to say. The rabbi came during our cleaning to give us wine and more gefilte fish, and Friday evening his wife told me how pleased the rabbi was at how hard we were working to clean the house.”

The letter also included a description of how we obtained kosher for Passover food in Munich. This was a far cry from the numerous Jewish and non-Jewish stores right near our house in Los Angeles where we can get an unbelievable assortment of kosher for Passover food items.

That April 1971, when Mitch and I really cleaned for Pesach for the first time in our lives, we were Jews living in Germany, a country that only 30 years before had tried to make the world judenrein – free of Jews. This year of 2008, may all who are celebrating Pesach throughout the world truly appreciate this holiday celebrating our freedom. We are still here!

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“Kosher for Passover” in the U.S. Army

Today I’m experiencing somewhat of déjà vu. I’ve just read the most recent post on Jewsingreen.com concerning an Orthodox chaplain -- Army Captain Shmuel Felzenberg – serving in Afghanistan. The article is by Lee Lawrence, correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor.

In describing Chaplain Felzenberg’s kosher dietary needs, Lawrence says that Felzenberg has “Army-supplied kosher meals. For holidays like Passover, the Army provides supplies, right down to Passover-approved wine.”

The U.S. Army has obviously come a long way from my time as an army officer’s wife in Munich, Germany, where the Orthodox chaplain stationed there our first year influenced my husband and me to decide to keep kosher. In those days we did not get kosher food items for Passover from the army; the items we did get were provided by the Jewish Welfare Board.

In my 1992 Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION, co-authored with Rabbi Karen L. Fox, here is what I wrote in the sidebar “Passover in the U.S. Army” in the chapter “Pesach – The Freedom Story”:

“During Passover of 1971 my husband was stationed with the U.S. Army in Munich. We’d been married a little over a year and this was the first time we would be making our own seders. Needless to say, it was a little daunting to prepare for Passover far from home in a country we perceived as hostile.

“But we had assistance. First, the Jewish Welfare Board sent “kosher for Passover” canned match ball soup, matzah and other Passover food to armed forces personnel throughout the world. We had the basics.

“Then the Jewish army chaplain in Munich instructed us on many points. For the first time we cleaned our kitchen to remove all hametz, even though at that time we didn’t have dishes just for Passover. As we cleaned there was a tremendous feeling of Jewish pride as we continued the ancient Passover ritual in post-Holocaust Germany!”

Now in 2008 with the first seder less than two weeks away (the night of Saturday, April 19, this year), I’m busy preparing for the upcoming holiday. My husband and I have been keeping kosher since our return to the United States in May of 1972. And here in Los Angeles there are so many stores carrying “kosher for Pesach” food items.

And I am truly grateful for the freedom to practice my religion openly – a privilege that Jews throughout the ages have infrequently enjoyed. As I type this post I have tears in my eyes for the Jewish military personnel who will be celebrating Pesach – the holiday of freedom – far from home in Iraq or Afghanistan. As a former Mrs. Lieutenant, I know that these deployed Jewish military personnel, along with all deployed U.S. military personnel, are protecting that freedom of religion that I hold so dear.

If you want to know how to show your appreciation to U.S. military personnel, go to my website at www.mrslieutenant.com and click on “Support Military Families.”