Skid Row Is Host to Seder for Passover

Phillip McLachlan, a 23-year-old ex-felon and recovering drug user, learned a new word on Sunday: D ‘ay-nu , which in Hebrew means “enough.”

McLachlan was one of 50 clients of the Skid Row-based Weingart Center who participated in their first Passover seder, held by Los Angeles Jewish Family Services and B’nai B’rith. They were joined by about 40 Jewish senior citizens from the Israel Levin Center in Venice.

“You’ve got to learn to adjust to other cultures and traditions,” McLachlan said. “I’m real glad these people came today.”

It was the center’s third Skid Row seder, organized by Sara Glazer, Passover Committee coordinator, and Maxene Johnston, center president. Each year, they have invited both a Jewish cantor and a Protestant pastor to preside.

“This is the only ecumenical seder in the city,” Glazer said. “The key word is freedom. That is the story of the Jewish people and it is the story of very many other people, like those here today.”

Short Version of Service

As Cantor Janet Bieber sang and chanted an abbreviated version of the lengthy seder service, most Weingart Center clients followed along silently in Passover Haggadah booklets. But a few elderly residents of the Israel Levin Center joined in heartily, some of them breaking into harmony.

Albert L. Bragg, a thin, gray-haired man who has attended “dozens and dozens” of seders in his lifetime and three already this year, surveyed the predominantly black Weingart Center crowd.

“I was just thinking,” Bragg said. “Isn’t it ironic that we should all be here together? I mean the blacks and the Hebrews have both been slaves.”

Passover celebrates the Israelites’ freedom from Egyptian bondage more than 3,000 years ago. Yet Johnston said she first thought of holding the seder not so much because of its spiritual and historical meaning, but because of its timing.

“I looked at how much emphasis Thanksgiving and Christmas got around here and I thought we needed something in the spring,” she said.

Food Not Sumptuous

The strict Kosher meal prepared by Cusner Catering Service, which presented food ranging from unleavened matzo bread to gelatinous gefilte fish, was not to everyone’s taste.

“I don’t like it. I’m going to be honest,” said Melvin Thomas. “The soup is just bread and water. I want some food. I’d rather have something basic, that I know.”

But Jervis Reed, a former kindergarten teacher who had been hooked on rock cocaine, said the seder was more than just an unusual meal.

“I feel maybe I can relate more to a Jewish person now than I could before,” Reed said. “Maybe we would have something to talk about.”