I t was that time of year again when my dad dresses up like a pharaoh, drinks too much Jew juice, aka Manischewitz a sweet table wine my grandmother drank, and entertains us with biblical politics during Moses’ liberation of the Hebrew slaves of Egypt.

 

Papa mixing it up with a musket

“They were all right wing conservatives and the liberal Egyptians tried to unfairly tax them,” has been his most recent interpretation. Last week he wanted to have a Cajun themed Passover, but his matzo-ball gumbo didn’t turn out so well.

For years we have been inviting friends over for this eccentric Passover dinner to share the love. Since we are only sort of Jewish and not Torah-waving Yiddish we get away with the vague resemblance of the original traditions by using chicken bones for the shank on the Pesach plate. Last year I made apple crumble for the Charoset, which is a mush of apples and walnuts used to resemble mortar. The bottle of beet horseradish that has lasted us for years is gone thanks to my Nazi-related husband eating it in spoonfuls.

“Genius! Because without Pharaoh there is no Passover!” papa says channelling Charleston Heston in the Ten Commandments. “My pharaoh wants to be Jewish and is jealous. I only put him in there because I wanted to be pharaoh as an adult child.” He claims inspiration from the 1952 musical act Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs who sang Wooly Bully.

San the Sham & the Pharaohs

In the last five years that my dad has been retired from his life role as the heart surgeon with a pet alligator, the annual performance has become particularly entertaining. My children are still so young they don’t yet understand what slaying of the first born means when he rambles on about its significance. He drinks the allotted glasses of wine with gusto and rants that I should have circumcised my sons to avoid the “shumutz” plague of the Egyptians. The first year I was married to Patrick, he said he was afraid to come home that evening from work in case an honorary circumcision was part of the ceremonial dinner.

“Meek a moko hey nu!” papa sings around the house wearing the baby blue & silver prayer cloth I bought for him in Israel. It was the brightest one I found and later discovered it was meant for a child. It suits him though.

Every year I was pregnant I had to scrap my husband and my dad off the floor while listening to a mix of Klezmer and gypsy music. Last year the kids were old enough to run around playing frogs, also one of the plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, while looking for the Afikomen, the unleavened bread hidden for kids to find, in Easter eggs.

Guests at our Passover Party

It’s fun to have variety in our holidays and this year my friends even asked to come back for another round of funny hats. I just wish they would make chocolate Rabbi’s for the occasion. Light bulb!

 

 

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