Passover: a Working Holiday : Rules of Ritual Keep It Busy

Faced with what many call “mind-boggling” Passover meal preparations this week, about 200 Orange County Jews are turning to a new service: kosher takeout.

Some believe it’s akin to going to McDonald’s for Thanksgiving. But some hosts and hostesses say kosher takeout is the best way to survive Passover--the 8-day Jewish holiday that began Wednesday night with multicourse seders, ritual meals with strict rules for spotless kitchens and kosher foods.

“Usually, I’m hysterical before Passover,” said Arlene Rose of Fullerton, who is hosting 40 people in two seders, one Wednesday and another tonight. “This year, I’m relaxing.”

Rose ordered $250 worth of tzimmes (carrots with prunes and raisins), cakes, chopped liver, stuffed cabbage and turkey from kosher caterer Raphael Amar, who opened his kitchen Renaissance Kosher Caterers this year at the Jewish Community Center in Garden Grove.

Amar competed with seven other gourmet kosher caterers in Los Angeles before moving to Orange County, where he saw a growing market among the county’s estimated 100,000 Jews. “We had a tremendous turnout for kosher takeout (this) first year,” said Amar, who worked nearly around-the-clock Tuesday, filling 200 orders for Passover including traditional dishes of gefilte fish, potato kugel, prime rib and walnut cake. In one week, he said, he expects to gross $25,000.

“It’s a hectic time of the year,” concurs Gary Snofsky, co-owner of Sam’s Kosher Market in Garden Grove. He said he has worked 22 hours a day since April 12 to meet the demand, which he estimated is six to 10 times greater than during the rest of the year.

The county’s only other exclusively kosher store, Fairfax Market in Los Alamitos, has also been swamped with customers this week. “We’re too busy to talk,” one clerk said.

Passover, the Festival of Freedom, celebrates ancient Israelites’ deliverance from Egyptian bondage.

This year, it has a poignant meaning for an estimated 100 Soviet Jews who will be resettled in Orange County after being permitted to leave the Soviet Union under the policy of glasnost , said Merv Lemmerman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Orange County.

Traditionally, seder ceremonies are held in homes and synagogues the first two evenings. Because no chametz --food products containing a leavening, such as bread or spaghetti, beans or spices used with them--may be eaten and every trace of such products must be removed from the home, which is also cleaned thoroughly, by the time Passover arrives, “a lot of people are tired,” said Orthodox Rabbi David Elliezrie of the North Orange County Chabad Center.

“It’s a tremendous job, cooking, cleaning, buying products,” he said.

Chabad Center office manager Ofra Shipman said: “It’s a real big hassle. . . . You have to go into all your corners, clean out all your sofas, behind them and under them. And the kitchen you do extra, extra special. . . . You reline all the cupboards. Now we have the carpet cleaner here.

“It gets worse every year,” she said. “Once you’re finished, and sit down for the seder, its beautiful. But ‘til you get to that point, it’s a lot of hard work.”

Passover is “the strictest of all holidays for Jewish people,” explained caterer Amar, who said it took 5 days of cleaning, including two rabbis using a blowtorch just to ensure his own kitchen was “100% kosher” for the holiday. His facility then was given a license for Passover from Igud Kakashrus, a kosher supervision service in Los Angeles, said Rabbi Avrohom Teichman.

Amar’s catering operation came in very handy for Jay Masserman, a divorced Fountain Valley obstetrician who has been hosting seders for 4 years. He had invited 20 people for a Wednesday night ceremony, then broke his hand playing baseball. “I heard from my cousin there is a catering service. I went running to them, saying, ‘Help! Help!’ ” he said.

Masserman follows his mother’s tradition of boiling silverware with a stone, and burying knives in the ground overnight. “A lot of things you do in Judaism are tradition,” he explained.

But while takeout may not be traditional, “It really does make it a lot easier,” he said, adding: “You will always find somebody more strict or more kosher than anybody else. There will always be someone who says you’re not kosher enough.”

Jews who keep kosher normally use separate dishes for milk and meat. But the most religious have special pots, dishes and utensils just for Passover.

“I have another whole kitchen (for Passover) in my garage,” said Cheri Kessner of Irvine, a member of a modern Orthodox congregation who repapers her shelves and covers her countertops with foil for the holiday.

Kessner has even considered a Passover package offered by some hotels for the entire week, serving kosher meals, supervised by rabbis. “Every year, when I say no way I can do this working full time, I look at the brochures,” she said. But the prices, $2,000 each for her family of four, make it prohibitive.

“To me, the hard part is cleaning and you have to do that anyway.”

PREPARING FOR PASSOVER

Passover commemorates the emergence of the Jewish people as a nation 3,301 years ago when they left Egypt in freedom. Passover rituals require the eating of matzoh--unleavened bread, which was once given to slaves but became a symbol of freedom. Also, all traces of chometz , or edible fermented grain products, must be removed from homes, offices, desks, lockers and cars.

In the kitchen, Jewish law requires:

Use of special dishes, cooking utensils, glassware, silverware and table linen for Passover, with separate meat and dairy sets.

Use of year-round utensils, if metal or wood, only after a special “koshering procedure.” Once cleaned, the utensils must be boiled or torched at 450 degrees. Ovens must be cleaned and torched at 1,000 degrees.

That shelves, countertops and eating surfaces be cleaned and covered or washed with boiling water. Special dish racks, sink racks and wash basins should be used.

That refrigerators be cleaned, washed down and lined.

Food products eaten for Passover must be stamped with approval of a reliable kosher supervisor and tightly sealed.

Source: The Kosher Directory of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and Rabbi Avrohom Teichman of Igud Kakashrus, a Los Angeles kosher supervision agency.