In recent years, as Passover has approached, some Jews and African Americans have come together for what they call a Freedom Seder to commemorate their common liberation from slavery. They tell their respective stories and eat food from each tradition. We attended the Freedom Seder this year at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
CLARA KELLER (Seder Organizer and Student, University of Massachusetts Amherst): Shalom and welcome to our seder. We come together tonight to celebrate liberation from the chains of oppression. Let us recall the struggles of all people in every generation, in every part of the world.
LARRY GOLDBAUM (Director of Office of Jewish Affairs, University of Massachusetts at Amherst): The Freedom Seder is a celebration of two cultures, each of which has in its history some experience of oppression, and specifically of slavery, and it's a celebration of our coming together in a positive way to share that experience.MAMEI WILLIE-BONGLO (Seder Organizer and Student, University of Massachusetts Amherst): By way of literature, cultural and traditional ceremony, and delicious food, we hope this night will leave a lasting impression, one that invokes the spirit of compassion, sincerity and an appreciation for the diversity in all of us.
Ms. KELLER: The book we read from tonight is called the Haggadah, which, in Hebrew, means "the telling."
(reading Hebrew prayer): Baruch Atah Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-Olam...
Traditionally during Passover, we tell strictly the story of Exodus, but we've rewritten that story to include pieces of writing and art by people from different cultures, including the African-American diaspora, so it's expanding our notion of that biblical story.
Ms. WILLIE-BONGLO: We come together, we have traditional ritual, there's a seder plate on each table, and participants go through each component of that plate.
Ms. KELLER: It feels really good to me just to be sharing this tradition with other people, because I think Judaism has a lot of mystery around it. A lot of people don't understand what it means, what our religion is about, what the culture is about.
