The Gift of an Overdue Passover Invitation

It is a ritual rooted in a history more than 3,000 years old . . . and a tradition born of rejection 50 years ago.

Wednesday night, like Jews around the world, Herb and Eva Hain will start Passover with a Seder, a meal rife with symbolism, commemorating the Jews’ freedom from bondage in ancient Egypt.

And, as it always does, the Hains’ Seder will include not just the traditional prayers, stories and songs, but the tale of Ivan, a Christian soldier passed over . . . turned away from a Seder at a British synagogue just after the end of World War II.

And this Passover, when Herb tells the story, Ivan will be there to hear it.

*

They were thrown together for one afternoon 54 years ago, Herb and Ivan, two American soldiers on a layover in Liverpool, en route to Germany with a shipload of German POWS.

“We were in uniform, just bumming around,” Herb recalls. “We didn’t know each other; somehow we’d been tossed together and decided, ‘Hey, let’s go explore the town.’ ”

They spent a few hours at the home of a British woman, who’d invited the two GIs to join her and her daughters for afternoon tea. Then they wound up hungry, back on the street.

“It dawned of me that this was the first night of Passover,” says Herb, who was born in Germany and came to the United States in 1936. “I thought maybe we could find a temple . . . maybe we could get a meal.”

They found a synagogue a few blocks away, slipped inside and stood at the back of the congregation.

“When the service ended,” Herb says, “we just kind of hung around. We didn’t have to be back to the ship until midnight, and we were hoping for an invitation for dinner.”

The invitation came, from a young rabbi eager to extend his family’s hospitality to a couple of Jewish American GIs. They were welcome, he said, to join him, his wife and his elderly parents for a Seder at their apartment in Liverpool’s Jewish ghetto.

“Then it occurred to me I ought to tell him that Ivan wasn’t Jewish, so he wouldn’t speak in Yiddish or make references that Ivan might not understand,” Herb says.

Their host was taken aback by the news.

“He said, ‘Oh, no, we can’t have him for our Seder. Father is very Orthodox. We’ve never had a non-Jew for dinner. I can’t do this to my father. You are welcome, but your friend can’t come.’

“I didn’t want to leave Ivan standing there,” Herb says, “but I also didn’t want to turn down the invitation. It was a terrible choice.”

But Ivan made the choice for him.

“You go,” Ivan said. “Your religion requires you to.” Ivan turned away and returned to the ship alone.

“And at that moment,” Herb says, “I decided that if I ever had a family, I would always have a non-Jew at our Seder, to make up for Ivan. Because he missed it.”

*

A few years later, Herb married Eva, a young woman he met at UCLA, who’d grown up not 20 miles from his hometown in Germany. They had a family--four sons and a daughter--and hosted a Seder every Passover.

“And each year, we’ve had someone at our Seder who is not Jewish,” Eva said. “Friends, co-workers, our children’s friends. . . . All because Ivan couldn’t come.”

And every year, Herb recounted the story of Ivan, until it became family legend, the centerpiece of their Passover lore.

Finally, curious friends began questioning him: What ever happened to Ivan? Did you ever hear from him again?

Herb had not seen his fellow soldier since they had left Germany. He didn’t even know Ivan’s last name. But he had stayed in touch with the British woman who had invited the pair that day for tea. He called her at her home in Australia; she dug up an ancient diary with an entry from that day:

The soldier’s name was Ivan Prosise. And he hailed from Illinois.

Herb set out to track him down.

“I called every area code in Illinois, and finally, on the last one, the operator said yes, she had an I. Prosise.”

It had been 25 years, but Herb recognized Ivan the moment he said hello.

“I said, ‘Were you in the Army in 1946? Did you go to Germany? Did you spend a half-day in Liverpool? Well, I’m the guy you spent that day with.”’

There was silence for a moment, then Ivan’s voice: “Are you a Jew?”

“He didn’t remember my name,” Herb said, “but he’d never forgotten what happened that day.”

*

The phone call kindled a relationship. There were letters, photos, telephone calls. Then, eight years ago, Ivan took a detour from a Las Vegas vacation to join Herb and his family for the first night of Passover . . . the Seder he’d missed so many years ago.

And Wednesday, when family and friends gather in West L.A. at Herb and Eva’s to taste the bitter herbs, read from the haggada, and celebrate the triumph of the Jewish exodus, Ivan, 73, and his wife will be there--along with the Australian woman who reunited them.

And 50 years of tradition will come full circle, linking Christian to Jew.

Sandy Banks can be reached at sandy.banks@latimes.com.