Project M.O.T. Prepares to Send Passover Packages to Deployed Troops

Reprinted from the blog at www.OperationSupportJewsintheMilitary.com:

Project M.O.T. has announced the packing date for Passover packages this year is March 4th. All donations must be received by February 26th.

If you are not in Los Angeles where Project M.O.T. is based, you can still send donations to be included in the packages (or funds to help with expenses).

Some of the items wanted (and these items must fit into boxes that are 8.5″ x 11″):

Small puzzle and game books

Small packages of Passover candies, cookies, gum and treats

Kipot

Matzah covers

(Haggadot are NOT needed.)

Email projectmot@aol.com if you would like to participate on March 4th and/or send donations.

Reminder: Donations must be received by February 27th to be placed in the assembly line on prep day.

Visit www.projectMOT.org to learn more.

P.S. This year the first seder is Friday evening, April 6th. Read the Passover chapter from the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION now.
___

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the eBook technothriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Phyllis is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic LLC, which works with clients to attract more business. Read her posts at the company's social media marketing blog.

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.

Technorati Tags:
army wives, officers wives, officers wife, virtual book tour, Vietnam War, Mrs. Lieutenant, Iraq War, Henry Einstein, kosher for Passover, Pesach, Robert M.W. Kempner, Passover, seder

“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.”