So tonight is the first night of Passover. What does that mean to me, a Jew in a Christian country?
Not a hell of a lot, actually. I haven’t been to a Seder in, gosh, about 5 years. The last one I was at was with my mother in Florida at a friend’s house.
I am not an observant Jew. I do not keep kosher. I do not observe the Sabbath. I do not go to Temple.
There is a small Jewish community here in Belfast. I know one other Jew, a woman I used to work with. Other than that? My being Jewish doesn’t affect anything.
Okay, so that’s not entirely true. When I got married, I insisted that my veil cover my hair as completely as possible during the ceremony. That was important to me on that day.
Oh and I skew the stats for our Fair Employment Paperwork, since I am the only one in my office who does not check off either Catholic or Protestant, but Other, on the form. (yes, in NI, those are the 3 choices. They don’t care what colour your skin is, but your religion is paramount).
Most of my memories of events like Seders have nothing to do with the Seder itself. I mostly remember the warmth of my mother’s kitchen the year we had a Seder for about 20 people as the women scurried about getting the meal on the table (and it was the women. Something about it being a Seder makes the traditional roles come through) and then cleaning up afterwards. I remember looking down the long table that year, with basically my entire family there, and feeling a part of something bigger than myself. Knowing that all over the world Jewish families were doing the exact same thing at more or less (with the variances of time zones) the exact same time.
Even my most recent Seder, at my mother’s friends house, I don’t really remember the Seder. I remember after the Seder, helping to clean up in the kitchen. The hosts had hired a caterer and serving staff to help them, as there were about 25 people there, and they wanted to enjoy the Seder and not be stuck in the kitchen. Even so, after dinner, the women were all in the kitchen, helping to put away the food and the dried dishes and such. The men? They were watching a sporting event on TV. 🙂
So being Jewish in a Christian country isn’t really that big of a deal to me. But sometimes I think maybe it should be.