Immigrant Justice/Racial Justice Haggadah Seder Plate Insert
April, 2003

In Mitzrayim, we faced the greed and fear of our taskmasters: their desire for free labor and their fear of our strength as a unified and oppressed community. Today, in the United States, the "We" has changed. Some Jewish communities, such as Iranian communities in California, have directly felt the impact of anti-immigrant policies in the U.S. today. Many other Jews here today are not treated as "the stranger." But as Jews, we all remember the bitterness of slavery and the joy of liberation. We know the power of telling an old story and the responsibility it gives to each generation; we must liberate each other, again and again.

We remember the past in order to be engaged with our present. Long before September 11th, immigrants were routinely held in jail (called detention) without criminal charges. Since September 11th, tens of thousands of men and boys from Arab, Muslim, and Asian countries have also had to register with the newly created Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration. Special Registration has led to secret mass deportations and detention of many. These crackdowns, conducted in the name of security, have terrified whole communities, making immigrant workers even more susceptible to economic exploitation. Domestic workers, who are one of the most isolated sectors of the workforce, have become particularly vulnerable to this exploitation.

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice launched a campaign for Immigrant Justice / Racial Justice in the fall of 2002 to respond to these conditions. Through the campaign we have partnered with immigrant-led community organizations to end special registrations, detentions, and deportations, and to win respect and better working conditions for domestic workers.

The seder plate, an integral part of the Passover seder, represents many aspects of the Passover story. It represents the bitterness of enslavement, the sweetness of liberation, our hope for the future, and our belief in something more powerful than fear and greed.

MATZAH
We break the middle matzah in two, wrapping one portion in a napkin and hiding it. This division reminds us of the forced division of communities and families due to disappearances, detentions, and deportations of immigrants that are carried out in the name of public safety. The portion of matzah that remains visible becomes our bread of affliction, lekhem oni, the suffering of those who do not know where their loved ones have been taken. The hidden piece of matzah, the afikomen, represents the horror hidden from our view - the treatment of those detained and prevented from speaking with their families, friends, or even lawyers. The disappeared are doubly blocked from our sight, physically separated in jails and detention centers, but also wrapped in a blanket of fear of further disappearances and legal attacks, fears intended to silence their communities. Until these divided parts are made one again, our seder cannot truly be ended. Until these families and communities are reunited, we have not yet achieved our freedom.

MAROR
Maror holds the sharpness of absence, of those who have been disappeared. We can taste the bitter, like tangible evidence of their pain. From reading the newspaper, from going through one's daily life, there is little evidence that people, mostly men, are being registered, detained for unlimited lengths of time, imprisoned without reason, deported secretly in the middle of the night, and tortured without public knowledge. Suspicion, dark skin, a Muslim name, has been reason enough. Hold that bitterness on your tongue. Taste it.

KARPAS
The karpas gives the tension between the aliveness of Spring and the bitter tears we wept in the land of Egypt. We are refreshed by the greenness of the karpas, yet our tastebuds wince at the salt water to dip them in, as we recall our own experience of being strangers. Our tongues push our thoughts towards those who are made strangers in our present time, in this country.

We dip the karpas. The salt water is bitter tears running down the cheeks and seeping into the corners of the mouth; tears of all strangers everywhere. Taste them.

CHAROSET
Using mortar and bricks, the Jewish slaves, who were foreigners, the children of refugees from famine in Canaan, built the pyramids. The charoset reminds us of the mortar, a symbol of unrewarded toil. Tonight we eat charoset to remember all exploitation of immigrant labor. Just as many Jews in this country once worked in sweatshops, immigrants continue to work long hours for poverty wages. We remember how our ancestors' work enriched the lives of the Egyptians, and challenge ourselves to think about the ways that many of us currently benefit from exploited labor. Immigrants plant, pick, and process our food; sew our clothes; take care of our children; and clean our homes and offices. For Jews, the descendants of slave laborers who built the pyramids, such profit should never be sweet. Instead, we take the sweetness of charoset as a symbol of resistance and the possibility of liberation for all.

SHANKBONE
In Egypt, Hebrew slaves were spared the plagues visited on the Egyptians, and the shankbone represents how the slaves were passed over for the last plague - the killing of the firstborn. The story of our escape from slavery also tells a second story of a powerful God who punishes individual members of a society that holds slaves. Many of us recoil at the violence of which the shankbone reminds us, and we pull away from the idea of a vengeful and murdering God. In a world filled with violence, how do we form a vision of justice that is meant not only for our own community, but for all peoples? What does it mean to remember past suffering? What kind of liberation do we want to help create today?

THE EGG
Like the karpas, the egg gives us the theme of rebirth and renewal. As we remember past oppression, and think about current oppressions, we do not find only the bitterness of pain and despair. We also find hope - in the freshness of spring, in the sweetness of charoset, in the smooth circular feel of the egg which holds the potential for new life. Some people dip not only the karpas in salt water, but also the boiled egg. In the past and present, in the retelling and rebirth, we find both the hope which the egg symbolizes and the pain of the salt water which accompanies it. With both symbols, we recreate our vision of a world reborn in justice and liberation.

For more information about how to get involved in JFREJ's Immigrant Justice/Racial Justice campaign, please call 212-647-8966 or email.