Passover Tales Then and Now

Seder story of survival, freedom, told with food, family--and a gefilte fish

An Illustration by Arie Allweil from one of my father’s prized Haggadahs, printed in Israel in 1956.

“In every generation, we should view ourselves as if we had been liberated from Egypt.” (From the Passover Haggadah)

If there was ever a holiday that speaks to our present moment, it’s the Jewish observance of Passover, which begins this year on Saturday evening, March 27.

It includes all the elements of the original Exodus tale, as related in the Passover Haggadah, of how the Israelites escaped bondage in Egypt and fled to freedom: a year of captivity, food insecurity, a plague that has killed and sickened unspeakable numbers, the rise of despots, and of heroes, and, finally, of hope and possible liberation through the miracle of vaccines.

And, if you love food—and good stories—there is no better occasion than a Passover seder, in which you actually use the foods of the seder plate—the bitter and the sweet—to tell a saga of travails and triumph, and then treat yourself to a multi-course feast.

(More on that below, plus a recipe for matzo balls with almonds and nutmeg!)

My grandfather leading the last seder in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1938, a few months before the Straus family made its escape to America.

Today you can find a seder to suit your attention span—everything from a 30-minute version to one you might zip through in 2 minutes. These bear little relation to the seders I remember from childhood, many conducted by my father at my grandmother’s house in Berkeley or at ours in Palo Alto. In my memory, these went on for hours!

My father, a bit of a purist when it came to family seders, felt it was important to touch on all the important points in the Haggadah—no shortcuts. In the course of asking and answering the four questions, telling the stories of the four sons, reciting (and blotting out with drops of wine) the 10 plagues, hiding and retrieving a broken piece of matzo, and sampling and discussing the symbolic foods on the seder plate, my father maintained that the entire history of the Jewish people could be told. It was a saga of suffering and persecution, struggle, hope and, finally, freedom—and joy. And we sang a lot, often accompanied on the mandolin by my talented Uncle Phil!

For me, the story in the Haggadah was my family’s immigrant story too: escaping all but certain annihilation in Nazi Germany and coming to America to begin anew. Wasn’t that something like fleeing the evil Pharaoh en route to the Promised Land?

A family celebration at my grandmother’s house in Berkeley, I’m the one hiding behind my cousin Tina, in front with the flowered dress.

My second cousin Ursula remembers her grandmother Lily, one of my grandfather’s two older sisters, and her mother Elizabeth, Lily’s daughter and my father’s first cousin, knowing all the Passover melodies and prayers “backwards and forwards” because of their Orthodox upbringing in Karlsruhe, Germany, the city where my father and his siblings were also born and raised.

Ursula, front, with siblings Barbara, Peter (top) and Albert, and father Rudolf Goldschmidt, shortly before the family left Germany.

Ursula came to America at age 5 with her parents, sister and two brothers in late 1938 at around the same time as my grandparents, right before it became almost impossible for Jews to leave. For Ursula, as for me, that story of escaping the Nazis and emigrating to a new land was an obvious way to make the Passover story personal for her and husband Irv’s four children.

“When we came to the point in the seder when you were supposed to think of yourself as if you were in Egypt and wonder about how you would have acted, we would talk about what had happened in our family.”

That tale of immigration formed the background story of the lives of my first-generation American cousins—the sense that we were the lucky ones who grew up in a land where freedom was our birthright as citizens—unlike the darkness our parents had fled in that other place called Germany.

And that consciousness of being an American was somehow part of the seder. Our parents and grandparents gloried in having achieved this new and bright chance for the next generation. Ursula’s parents could send her and her brothers and sisters to school to get an education—in the Germany they had left behind, where Hitler was on the verge of launching a war and a Holocaust, that wasn’t possible.

My parents, Vernon and Flora Stroud, at their 50th wedding anniversary in 1991 with children, spouses and grandchildren. They had the party they weren’t able to have at their wedding in Glasgow during the war. (Photo by Andy Partos).

At the seder table, my father reminded us to recline on the pillows that had been added to the chairs because we were free, like other Americans, even as we dined on German china amid heavy, beautifully crafted German furniture miraculously spirited away under the nose of the Third Reich.

How did they manage it? I still don’t know. But they felt a victory had been won and they never forgot it—or let their children or grandchildren forget it either. And the seder was a place where that story was told through another much older story—the exodus from Egypt.

This year, we will surely tell that story again against the backdrop of the pandemic, racism, political division and the other plagues of our present moment. Passover never gets old.

——————————-

About the food...

At almost every seder I can remember, the first course included gefilte fish—usually the jarred variety—a polarizing dish that sometimes didn’t go over too well with younger guests, while others adored it, especially slathered with beet horseradish (I’m in that number!). My son Sam, author of the cartoon (below), would just as soon the gefilte species would return to the deep blue sea, never to be seen again.

A gefilte fish with an identity problem. (Cartoon by Sam Graham)

Following the gefilte fish came matzo ball soup, universally loved. Then came a main course that, at my grandmother’s house, often included new baby potatoes, roast leg of lamb (though I have read now that among some Ashkenazi Jews, this isn’t considered strictly kosher on Passover), and asparagus or some other spring vegetable, to celebrate the season. To end the meal, there were Passover sponge cakes and almond or coconut macaroons made or bought especially made for the holiday.

For my seder this year, which will finally be an in-person event with five fully vaccinated people (hurray!), I’m making matzo balls with almond meal and nutmeg. I was inspired by wonderful soup I’ve tasted at seders at my cousin Tina and her husband Andy’s house for many years. It’s a recipe Tina remembers from her mother, Ilse and that may have been served at my grandmother’s seders long ago. While Tina couldn’t lay her hands on the exact recipe, one in the Settlement Cookbook provides a close approximation, she said.

Here it is:

Although the recipe doesn’t specify, I would chill the dough after mixing, then form the batter into 1-inch balls (or larger if you prefer larger matzo balls) and drop them into boiling, salted water, rather than fat. Reduce the heat, cover the pot and cook for 15 or 20 minutes, before adding them to the soup.

Matzo ball soup served in a piece of German china that survived the trip to America. For thoughts on the soup, see comments.

Tina said her mother, who believed in shortcuts, suggested that it was also fine to use a matzo ball mix, adding a bit of nutmeg, some chopped parsley, ground almonds, finely chopped sautéed onions, and schmaltz (chicken fat—or oil, if you prefer). I will probably try both recipes. Will the matzo balls live up to my memories? I’ll let you know.

Please write and tell me how you’re celebrating Passover this year—or Easter. Will you be doing an in-person event, meeting on Zoom—or just ignoring the whole thing? What are you cooking? Is it something passed down through the generations? Or are you just opening a jar of gefilte fish? Please let me know. And Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate.

Thanks for reading my newsletter. If you haven’t yet subscribed, please do, and be sure to leave a comment.