Passover Seders During the Civil War
(1862)
For American Jewry during the Civil War, the Passover story was especially powerful. Northern soldiers saw clear parallels
between the Union freeing the South’s slaves and Moses leading the ancient Hebrews out of Egypt. However, creating a seder during in a war zone requires flexibility and creativity. In 1862, the Jewish Messenger published an account
by J. A. Joel of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment of a seder celebrated
by Union soldiers in Fayette, West Virginia. Joel and 20 other Jewish
soldiers were granted leave to observe Passover. A soldier home on leave
in Cincinnati shipped matzot and hagaddot to his colleagues. Joel wrote:
We . . . sen[t] parties to forage in the country
[for Passover food] while a party stayed to build a log hut for the
services. . . We obtained two kegs of cider, a lamb, several chickens
and some eggs. Horseradish or parsley we could not obtain, but in
lieu we found a weed whose bitterness, I apprehend, exceeded anything
our forefathers ‘enjoyed.’ …
We had the lamb, but did not know what part was to represent it at
the table; but Yankee ingenuity prevailed, and it was decided to cook
the whole and put it on the table, then we could dine off it, and be
sure we got the right part.
The necessaries for the choroutzes we could not obtain, so we got a
brick which, rather hard to digest, reminded us, by looking at it, for
what purpose it was intended.
Yankee ingenuity indeed! Historian Bertram Korn observes, "It
must have been quite a sight: these twenty men gathered together in
a crude and hastily-built log hut, their weapons at their side, prepared
as in Egypt-land for all manner of danger, singing the words of praise
and faith in the ancient language of Israel." The seder proceeded
smoothly until the eating of the bitter herbs. Joel recounted:
We all had a large portion of the herb ready to eat
at the moment I said the blessing; each [ate] his portion, when horrors!
What a scene ensued . . . The herb was very bitter and very fiery like
Cayenne pepper, and excited our thirst to such a degree that we forgot
the law authorizing us to drink only four cups, and . . . we drank up
all the cider. Those that drank more freely became excited and one thought
he was Moses, another Aaron, and one had the audacity to call himself
a Pharaoh.
The consequence was a skirmish, with nobody hurt, only Moses, Aaron and Pharaoh had to be carried to the camp, and there left in the arms
of Morpheus.
More problematic was the situation of Union soldiers who, unable to
form their own seders, were forced to "fraternize" with local
Jews. Myer Levy of Philadelphia, for example, was in a Virginia town
one Passover late in the war when he saw a young boy sitting on his
front steps eating a piece of matzo. According to Korn, when Levy "asked
the boy for a piece, the child fled indoors, shouting at the top of
his lungs, ‘Mother, there’s a damn Yankee Jew outside!’
The boy’s mother invited Levy to seder that night. One wonders
how the Virginian family and the Yankee soldier each interpreted the
hagadah portions describing the evils of bondage.
On the eve of the fifth day of Passover (April 14),
1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot and died of his wounds in the early morning
of April 15th, which had already been scheduled as a national day of
prayer to mark the end of the Civil War. Jews across the land were gathering
in synagogues to give thanks. When news of Lincoln’s death arrived,
Korn notes, the synagogue altars were quickly draped in black and, instead
of Passover melodies, the congregations chanted Yom
Kippur hymns. Rabbis set aside their sermons and wept openly at
their pulpits, as did their congregants. Lincoln had been protective
of American Jewry, overturning General Grant’s infamous General
Order #11 expelling Jews from the Department of the Tennessee and
supporting legislation allowing Jewish chaplains to serve in the military.
The Jewish Record drew the analogy between Lincoln not having lived
to see the reconciliation of North and South and Moses dying on Mount
Pisgah before he saw the Israelites enter the Promised Land.
When no American armed forces are in combat anywhere in the world,
it is easy to forget how difficult it can be for Jewish soldiers to
serve their country while maintaining the traditions that beautify Judaism.
Nevertheless, for Jewish Union soldiers fighting between 1861 and 1865
to free others from slavery, the Passover parallels must have made each
seder particularly sweet and meaningful.
Sources: American Jewish
Historical Society |