PESACH KUMMUNIQUE IS HERE!!!!

Shalom! We are proud to present another issue of Kummunique.
This issue is filled with Aliyah and Eretz Yisrael inspiration - so enjoy!

In this issue you will find:

1. "They Tried To Destroy Us, We Won, Let's Eat" by Malkah Fleisher
2. "Have I Done the Right Thing?" by Go´el Jasper
3. "Understanding the Exodus Personally: The Kibbutz Haggadah" By Carol Novis
4. "Insight Into the Heart Of Israel" by Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz

Check out our Pesach Kummunique at THE KUMMUNIQUE HOME

Here is the first article to wet your appetite:

"They Tried To Destroy Us, We Won, Let's Eat" by Malkah Fleisher

Passover is often degraded into a Jewish gastronomic experience. "Oh no, no rugelach!" "Oy, more matzah?" "Be careful to check and make sure there's no kitniyot in that pasta sauce!"

But Passover isn't about food. Did you hear that? PASSOVER ISN'T ABOUT FOOD.

As I declare war on things like bread crust and cereal flakes, I feel more strongly than ever that Passover isn't a "food" holiday. Passover is an intense, life-consuming meditation, a bold assertion of our odd identity in this world.

We eat matzah, we avoid leavened products like the plague (pardon the pun), we spend hours around the table partaking in symbolic foods, and recalling one wild night we experienced 2,000 years ago. For what?

Yishai kneads dough for this year's Shmura Matza


Sometimes we forget how personal our Jewishness is. Sometimes the Torah seems "legendary", our laws antiquated, our practices ritualistic (G-d forbid!). Passover comes to remind you that it's all so modern, it's all so personal, that it's as if it just happened yesterday - that it's happening right now. Your G-d has come to redeem you - right now. The world is being turned upside down in submission to your formidable righteousness, your intimate association with the Creator of the World - right now. You are being wisked out of your miserable rut and into the clean desert winds of promise - right now.

You tied the lamb to your bed post. You threw the dough together with shaking hands. You sat up all night, considering how to explain everything to the kids. You let tears fall as you heard the screams rise up out of Egypt. You pleaded with stubborn Jews who were too stuck, too lost to leave a land of squash, leeks, melon, onions, and garlic. You felt your shoulders slump as a massive army came to return you to bondage. And you saw G-d bend nature around His love for you.

For one night a year, we return to Egypt. Every year, we're freed, with an outstretched hand, with signs and wonders. We don't "commemorate" the exodus from Egypt. We don't "practice" Judaism. We live it - past, present, future, all fresh, all real, all relevant.

Eat the matzah. Drink the wine. You'll need your strength in the wilderness.



Here's a Passover recipe from a proud Kumah family, the Brenners of Beit Yatir:

Passover Apple Cake

2 cups potato flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
3/4 cup brewed, cold coffee (decaff)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups apples or pears, peeled and sliced
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Dissolve baking soda in the coffee. Mix dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, stir in wet ingredients and blend. Add fruit and nuts. Pour into a greased pan. Bake at 180 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until it tests done. Cool cake for 10 minutes, then invert pan over plate. Sprinkle with powderd sugar (optional) and serve warm or at room temperature.

Check out our Pesach Kummunique at THE KUMMUNIQUE HOME