Milwaukee's African American Seder

by Jaylie Smith

The annual African American Jewish Seder was an interesting event to witness for myself. Although this was a Seder, it was held at All Saints Catholic Church which made me even more curious to see what it was like. There was a mixture of Jews and African Americans mingling and having a great time. While observing this event, I saw that at every table there was at least one Jewish person showing and helping everyone conduct the Seder. As we proceeded through each step of the Seder, the leader directed everyone to point to each food in which to recognize what it was and why it was on the plate.

At every table there were packets for each person to follow along in. These packets were filled with the order of the Seder, and what things you were to say, like all of the brachas and the four questions. Also for some parts of the packet there would be sections where people could read along and sections where individual people would stand up and speak. There were times when people would talk about the history of Pesach and the reasons why Pesach is celebrated.

At the dinner, the time when the Jews were freed out of slavery and left Egypt was compared to the Africans which were brought to this country as slaves and then later on freed. During a seder, we are reminded of the ten plagues. During the telling of the plagues, the host of this event decided to get the children involved. She did this by having them act out the plague of frogs. The children got to do this by running around the room and placing plastic frogs all over the place.

Now, time to eat! The meal that was eaten consisted of collard greens, cornbread, sweet potatoes, chicken, salad, lemonade, and apple cobbler. After about forty-five minutes of dining, a man named Willie Wade gave a little speech about diversity. Willie Wade, who is currently alderman of the 7th District, told of a time when he was in a meeting with a group of CEOs. This meeting was basically to find ways to get more diversity in their companies. It was very obvious that everyone was getting tired of these meetings. So, one man decided to say, "You know what? I’m tired of these meetings." Then another man spoke up and said, "Well, if you would just go ahead and hire people of different racial backgrounds, then we could stop having these meetings." They sadly realized that this man would rather sit through boring meetings than give someone of a different ethnic background a chance to make a living.

After this a few other people said a few words, like a women named Gigi who spoke about her trip to Haiti. She spoke about a connection between Haitians and the Jewish people, and what her and the Jewish community where doing to help. As a follow up on this they had tzedakah boxes (charity boxes) set at each table for people to money in which would go toward Haiti. To close out the Seder the host had everyone join hands. We sang songs, and danced around in a giant circle to close off this wonderful experience.

Being an African American Jew is a lot different than just being from one ethnic background. I myself have experienced this first hand, like when I have asked if something is kosher, and a person answers, "Why do you need to know you’re not Jewish." Or when someone makes a rude stereotypical comment about Jews because they’re under the assumption that you’re not Jewish. This is when I think to myself, "Wow you must be so closed minded to think that your skin needs to be a certain color to be from that ethnic group."

Since I come from both an African American and Jewish background, I’ve been able to find several connections between the two. For one, both of them are family-oriented and have strong family values. Also, they’ve both gone through some pretty tough hardship throughout past generations. For example, the African American people were taken from their homeland and forced into slavery. They were separated from the general public and were considered less than human. Likewise, many years ago Jewish people were forced into slavery in Egypt for over one-hundred years. Also, during what we know as the Holocaust, Jews all over Europe were separated from the general public, stuffed into ghettos, and looked upon as less than human.

Jews didn’t do anything to anyone and neither did the African Americans. So why were they treated so badly? I’ll tell you what I think. I believe that because they are both so unique and so original, that other people outside of each ethnic group become jealous and upset because we are doing so much better as a people than them. That’s what I think, and for those people out there who are like that, well, they’re just setting themselves up to fail.

An event like an African American Jewish Seder is not only important to just Jews or just African Americans. It’s important to everyone because it’s an experience where you can get an understanding of what its like for that other person who’s in Jewish or who is black. Not only did African Americans and Jews come, but others came as well. This was a great learning experience, and as I said before, this is a wonderful experience to witness in person because you can take so much away from it.

Jaylie Smith is a student at The Academy (Hillel).