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“Seder night is a special time for Jewish families to get together and remember their heritage,” explains Rabbi Yehoshua Grunstein, Director of Training and Placements at the Joseph and Gwendolyn Straus Rabbinical Seminary’s Straus-Amiel Practical Rabbinics Program. “For members of tiny Jewish communities this can be very difficult, and several turned to us for help. We responded enthusiastically, training and sending people to distressed communities from Portugal to Zimbabwe.”

Pesach Amongst the Pyramids

While most of us were preparing to celebrate leaving Egypt, Yeshivat Torat Yosef-Hamivtar students Rob Golder and Ari Segal traded the comforts of the Israel Henry Beren Campus for the ancient ruins of Alexandria.

“Alexandria was once a thriving Jewish community, but today only about 100 Jews remain in all of Egypt,” explains Golder. “Many of the attendees had very little Jewish education and they spoke a variety of languages, so we concentrated on making sure that everyone understood the essence of the holiday.”

The pair also led services in Alexandria’s last remaining synagogue, which was built in 1859. “On Pesach morning, we spotted an elderly woman weeping in a corner of the synagogue,” relates Segal. “When we asked why she was crying, she began to tell us stories about the days when the shul was packed with people. It meant so much to her that the synagogue was alive again, albeit just for a few days.”

From the Ashes

While Golder and Segal were baking in the heat of Egypt, Rabbi Yehoshua Ellis and his wife, Raissa, set out for the freezing cold of Poland. They didn’t travel light: “We brought with us 20 kilos of matza and hundreds of haggadot,” he says.

Their first stop was Bytom, once the home of a large synagogue and flourishing Jewish community. “Today, all that remains is a small room where about 20 people gather for prayers,” explains Ellis. “None of them can read from the Torah or recite the haftorah.” After that, the couple moved on to Katowice, where they began the enormous project of organizing two seders. “All the meat was transported from Warsaw in a five-hour marathon,” Ellis recalls, “and we spent an entire week koshering the kitchen and cooking meals for over a hundred people.”

After a brief stop at Wroclaw, where Straus-Amiel graduate Rabbi Yitzhak Rapoport serves as rabbi, the young couple spent an emotional Shabbat in Lublin. “This was once home to the famous yeshiva, though tragically, there are now only 30 people who identify themselves outwardly as Jews,” relates Ellis. “It was a chilling privilege to be able to give classes and lead services on the ashes of such a rich past.”

“These congregations turned to us because of our reputation of services even the most far-flung communities across the globe,” says Grunstein. “Had we not sent emissaries for the Seder, Pesach would have been something that these Jewish families could only read about in books.”

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