At Brookdale/Leawood when Passover beckons, Annette Fish knows there are Jewish residents who greatly appreciate the chance to order strictly kosher for Pesach meals, fully cooked and in special containers for warming. As a Jewish resident I am aware we ordered last year and were delighted with the delicious foods.
When the flyer came this year, I let the residents know and I invited interested ones to sign up for Passover 2017. Twenty-eight signed up. Patsy Shanberg helped determine the orders and I asked Brookdale staff to help pick up all the food from Beth Shalom. Brookdale’s culinary staff refrigerated the food and then set the tables, warmed it all and served it buffet style Friday evening, April 14.
Special guests that evening were Rabbi Doug Alpert and Laura Steiner. Yes, it took a “neighborhood family” to share the goodness of taste and warmth of friends. Patsy led us in Kiddush; Char Pollack lit the candles, Golda Mayer led the Motzi and I welcomed our 28 guests for another wonderful Passover dinner ... without having to spend one minute in the kitchen!
So here’s to “Next year at Brookdale/Leawood.”
Sandra Friedman Czarklisky
Leawood, Kansas
No free pass to ‘Seinfeld’
You are correct in criticizing Sean Spicer for his glib reference to Hitler (“Spicer, Hitler and the Soup Nazi: Why can’t this White House get the Holocaust right?” April 20) but you should not have given a free pass to the “Seinfeld” show for the reference to the “Soup Nazi.” That character was based on a real person, a proud immigrant who deeply resented having the term “Nazi” applied to him.
Stu Lewis
Prairie Village, Kansas
Commemorating the Shoah should become a religious observance
I cannot sleep. One thought passes throughout the night. I, a 2G (child of a survivor), am only a few years younger than the youngest Holocaust survivors. Who will be the voices of the Holocaust when we are gone? Some answered our children and grandchildren. Wish it were so. I believe we 2G’s have the strongest attachment to the survivors and that after we are gone all the museums, books and movies will not stop the Holocaust from just becoming a date in history, another genocide. It hurts me to say so. I have spent my life writing Holocaust books, curriculum, articles and teaching Holocaust studies but soon the survivors will be gone and the revisionists will go to work with vigor. It is already happening today. What is the solution to safeguard Holocaust memory? The Shoah must be incorporated into religious ritual. It must be part of the Haggadah, the machzor, High Holiday and other Jewish holidays. Eventually the Shoah should become part of the Tisha b’Av service and other fast days. Perhaps the Shoah should be a day of fasting with the lighting of six candles and reciting Kaddish and other special Holocaust orientated prayers. I ask that no one be upset at me for predicting the future observance of the Shoah, but this is what I truly believe.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Edison, New Jersey
