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Passover event blends culture, education |
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Tuesday, 15 April 2008 |
 | Trost
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by McLEAN DOBBINS
Intern News Reporter
Appalachian State University Hillel will host a Mountaineer Passover Dinner Monday at 7 p.m. in the Blue Ridge Ballroom of Plemmons Student Union.
The Passover holiday lasts eight days and celebrates the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt by Moses found in the Book of Exodus.
The event is sponsored by North Carolina Hillel, the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies, the Office of Multicultural Student Development, and the Boone Jewish Community, and will include a buffet-style dinner provided by ASU Food Services.
Traditional songs will also be performed by Jane Pitt, said Lyudmila Trost, a sophomore psychology
major and president of ASU Hillel.
Trost said the club decided to bring back the Passover Seder after a two-year hiatus.
“Passover is one of the most important holidays so we definitely wanted to share that with the school
and the community,” Trost said. “It’s a very educational opportunity.”
Taking place during the first two nights, the Passover Seder is the most important part of the holiday
and includes traditional foods that have a symbolic meaning for Jews, Trost said.
These foods include egg, parsley, horseradish, and a salad made with apples and walnuts called
charoset.
Trost said that the horseradish and the dipping of the parsley into salt water symbolized the bitter times
when the Jews were in slavery in Egypt. The charoset symbolized the good times after the Jews
arrived in the Holy Land.
“The egg is a symbolization of new life and creation. The shank bone is there because it was the tool
used by the slaves to dip into the blood and mark their doors so the angel of death would literally ‘pass
over’ their house when the slaying of the firstborn, the tenth plague, was cursed among the Egyptians,”
sophomore psychology major Daniel A. Batiansila said.
 | Batiansila
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Last week the organization sold about 70 tickets for the Passover dinner to students, professors and
community members.
Boone Jewish Community (BJC) President Chuck Lieberman said he plans to attend the Passover
dinner.
The close relationship between Hillel and the BJC has provided a tight-knit community for students who
left larger Jewish communities when they came to Appalachian.
A Boone resident since 1980, Lieberman has been an active member of Boone’s Jewish community
through the years.
“I feel like this year we’re doing a little better. But on the other hand, I always feel like we’re on the
verge of extinction,” Lieberman said. “But we never quite die. We keep going.”
Trost and Batiansila see the dinner as a multicultural, educational opportunity, not just a religious
event.
“We’re not just informing people who are not Jewish; we’re also informing Jewish people who don’t
know everything.” Trost said. “We don’t know everything.”
Tickets for the Passover Dinner are $6 and can be purchased at the Hillel contact table in the student
union from April 14 to17 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
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