My college gets an A+ in diversity.
I went to my school’s dining hall tonight, and I rarely eat there as I’m an off-campus student nowadays, but when I am on campus I try to eat there as it is less of an expense for me.
Now it’s Passover and I know it’s supposed to be the only place on campus set up for catering towards kids keeping kosher for the holiday.
Apparently to my school that means let’s just stick a basket of matzah out on top of a counter for them.
Now we do have a salad bar, which is great save for the fact that the majority of dressings are inedible as I have no idea of the ingredients of any of them save for if I wanted vinegar. But I don’t eat salad anyway so what else is there? I could get chicken, but it’s mixed with a sauce that I have no clue what it consists of so I can’t be sure if it’s kosher for Passover or not.
Moving on…I got plain cold chicken breast and a few veggies that had no sauce on them.
And at this point all I can say is thank god for frozen yogurt because at least I knew that was going to be fine.
I managed to make do, as most of the Jewish kids on campus have to, but should it really be a guessing game for us just to get some food? Why not set up a small table with a few things we can eat? Like plain warm chicken, plenty of veggie choices, salad dresses that are specific in their ingredient listings so we can tell what’s okay and what isn’t. And for God’s sake something more than just a small basket of matzah that’s gone in a blink because that’s the only item of food we know we can eat without second-guessing ourselves.
It doesn’t help that I did overhear our school’s management discussing plans for this Passover a few months back so I’m really not at all surprised at the lack of options. They talked about how this is an active choice to participate in this holiday and that we could always choose not to keep kosher for the holiday if the lack of food bothered us.
Thank God I live off campus and for the most part I can rely on my self to buy my own kosher food. But I feel bad for the kids still on campus. This is the reason I had to stop keeping kosher for the holiday these past few years because I literally had no food while I was on campus for that week. Except carrot sticks and apples. And believe me that got old real fast.
Really classy job there.
Keep up the good work.
Theater Review: PCS's "The Whipping Man"
portlandmonthlymag.comI reviewed Portland Center Stage’s new production, The Whipping Man, for Portland Monthly magazine this week.
I was almost as interested in the historical basis for this play as the play itself. Whipping Man has to do with a Jewish family that lives in the South during the Civil War era and owns slaves—two things I, a member of the tribe, had no idea Jews did. I write about this secret, dramatically rich history in the sidebar to the review.
Fascinating as its premise is, the play more than carries its own weight. As part of the Passover seder I go to each year, attendees are supposed to bring something—a quotation, a song, a poem—about the theme of the holiday, freedom. The tradition has revealed the concept to be much more complex than you’d think; Whipping Man, set in the days leading up to Passover, 1865, is a thoughtful (not to mention well-staged) exploration of that complexity.
JF
