14 Nisan/29 March, 2010
Mar. 29th, 2010 11:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyA few political links that keep me sane:
Medusa sent me this link and it is a good one. An open letter to conservatives.
Also this .
The rising conservatism of my father is really annoying and a bit disturbing. He even now refuses to see Nazis and communists as different no matter how many times I tell him that they are on the opposite side of political spectrum. He just says that they both suppress individual’s rights and conveniently disregards their economic differences. Like one can really separate economics and politics here. I think he argues with me on this for the sake of arguing. But since a few years ago when he started reading all kinds of conservative blogs and watching FoxNews his political views shifted to mine and my mother’s annoyance.
Tonight is the first night of Passover and the first Seder. When I was little my family gathered at my grandmother’s apartment for an Easter/Passover meal. There was mazza and a blessed Russian Easter bread cake too. And chicken soup in a cup. And my grandmother would make gefilte fish from scratch, with a fish head stuffed too, all looking at you with dead fishy eyes. Very delicious. It’s not like anything was religious in any way nor did we really have any rituals. We just gathered for a festive meal. Even when we came to America things didn’t change that much. We would have a special dinner on first Passover night but without any religious overtones. But the time I went to college I did start actually keeping Passover and not eating any bread for Passover week. That wasn’t always easy to do with dining hall food.
Things changed ten years ago when I was in London for my study abroad program. A quarter of the students in my program were Jewish and we ended up having a proper Seder. It was the first real Seder I ever went to with all the readings and rituals. And I really enjoyed it and since then I would try have a Seder every year. In grad school, I went to a Chabad House and a Hillel house and once just did the Seder myself. I found this amazing Seder book in on sale at Barnes and Noble based on medieval decorations with bird heads. Once I got my own apartment, I began hosting my own Seders where most people I invited weren’t even Jewish. Then once I moved back home, I convinced my friends to have a Seder together. Usually I would do a Seder at home with my parents and then on a Saturday during a Passover week, my friends and I would gather to cook together a huge meal and celebrate. And this year I will continue this tradition.
Cooking with my mother in the house is always so frustrating due to her incessant need to criticize everything I do. I made my potato kugel today and she just had to keep commenting on all the 'improper' way I was doing it. Argh.
Part of Passover is to tell the Exodus story. With modern technology this retelling has new forms. Last year there was a Facebook Haggadah. This year it is the story of Exodus in Tweets .
Medusa sent me this link and it is a good one. An open letter to conservatives.
Also this .
The rising conservatism of my father is really annoying and a bit disturbing. He even now refuses to see Nazis and communists as different no matter how many times I tell him that they are on the opposite side of political spectrum. He just says that they both suppress individual’s rights and conveniently disregards their economic differences. Like one can really separate economics and politics here. I think he argues with me on this for the sake of arguing. But since a few years ago when he started reading all kinds of conservative blogs and watching FoxNews his political views shifted to mine and my mother’s annoyance.
Tonight is the first night of Passover and the first Seder. When I was little my family gathered at my grandmother’s apartment for an Easter/Passover meal. There was mazza and a blessed Russian Easter bread cake too. And chicken soup in a cup. And my grandmother would make gefilte fish from scratch, with a fish head stuffed too, all looking at you with dead fishy eyes. Very delicious. It’s not like anything was religious in any way nor did we really have any rituals. We just gathered for a festive meal. Even when we came to America things didn’t change that much. We would have a special dinner on first Passover night but without any religious overtones. But the time I went to college I did start actually keeping Passover and not eating any bread for Passover week. That wasn’t always easy to do with dining hall food.
Things changed ten years ago when I was in London for my study abroad program. A quarter of the students in my program were Jewish and we ended up having a proper Seder. It was the first real Seder I ever went to with all the readings and rituals. And I really enjoyed it and since then I would try have a Seder every year. In grad school, I went to a Chabad House and a Hillel house and once just did the Seder myself. I found this amazing Seder book in on sale at Barnes and Noble based on medieval decorations with bird heads. Once I got my own apartment, I began hosting my own Seders where most people I invited weren’t even Jewish. Then once I moved back home, I convinced my friends to have a Seder together. Usually I would do a Seder at home with my parents and then on a Saturday during a Passover week, my friends and I would gather to cook together a huge meal and celebrate. And this year I will continue this tradition.
Cooking with my mother in the house is always so frustrating due to her incessant need to criticize everything I do. I made my potato kugel today and she just had to keep commenting on all the 'improper' way I was doing it. Argh.
Part of Passover is to tell the Exodus story. With modern technology this retelling has new forms. Last year there was a Facebook Haggadah. This year it is the story of Exodus in Tweets .
