Passover & Easter

Every year our family celebrates Passover and Easter, but it is a rare year to celebrate both on the same weekend.

My first exposure to Passover was as a 4th grader at a catholic grade school when my teacher, a nun, took us to her convent where we had Passover. It was the first time I had matzoh. Since a young child, I have been fascinated with the Jewish religion.

Imagining life without Christmas - this was my first intrigue of the seemingly odd practice of the Jewish religion. I didn’t get it. If Jesus was Jewish, why did the Jews not celebrate his birthday? It wasn’t until my adult life that I came to know where the old testament and new testament separated the beliefs.

In college I dated a med student just because he was Jewish and I was more interested in his religion than him. I did marry a Jewish man and both our sons have become Bar Mitzvah, and so we have celebrated both Easter and Passover for the past 25 years. Both holidays connect our many friends and family and create wonderful traditions.

One year ,we had all of the Passover Props from my dear friend Adrianna’s aunt Thelma’s treasures. (My dear friend Adrianna, whose Aunt Thelma, a Wampanoag, married a rabbi). The hand stitched, perfectly dry cleaned and pressed linens, the silver Passover seder plate and all of the stories brought awe and wonder to the Passover celebration. Adriana and Thelma are from the Wampanoag tribe of Aquinnah and we imagined how it must have been for her in the 60s to marry a Rabbi and convert to Judaism. Over the years so many wonderful stories have been collected and I wish that I had the same lamb shank frozen in the freezer to use year after year just as my friend Joan Nathan’s 98-year-old mother does every Passover.

Easter has been less of a religious holiday for us and more of a celebration of Spring. When the kids were little we always had an egg hunt followed by a brunch of ham and asparagus and eggs!

This year, with Easter and Passover on the same weekend, it will make for an interesting challenge to compliment and not duplicate the menus. Last Easter we roasted a whole lamb over a pit. Passover begins on Friday so we couldn’t possible have any pork for Easter since it will be during Passover, even if it is from our own pigs.

Any and all of my favorite Passover and Easter menus are sure to make our celebration this year special and help to create more of our own stories to be shared year after year...

RECIPES:

Passover:HarosetMatzoh Ball SoupHorseradishTzimmesSpinach SouffleMacaroons

Easter:Sticky BunsLamb with Tabil and Preserved Lemons

LINK to PUBLISHED ARTICLE in BA50  Better After 50

Image Credit:  joshbousel