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Kearah |
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Seder |
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Children found the aphikoman! |
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Pesach Songs |
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Jewish Community of Petropavlovsk City celebrated Pesach as usual
in the cafeteria of the school N 1, in the center of the city. Volunteers came
a long before the holiday started and helped to put tables and decorated the
hall with balloons and small flags. In the center of every table there was a
dish with all food products for Seder: haroset, lettuce, parsley, horseradish,
boiled potatoes, a piece of fried chicken, hard-boiled egg, wine and matzoth.
Mark Vitkin the Chairman of Cultural Center and Svetlana Makarovskaya
the Head of Community Center congratulated everybody in Hebrew. After their
speech there was candle lightening; each woman lighted two candles. Seder was
started when the prayers had been said. This year two young volunteers Ilya
Lemeshevsiy and Yefim Zhurbin conducted it because they were prepared enough
while being in religious camp. All prayers were said in two languages - Hebrew
and Russian.
Ritual Seder was accompanied with stories about the history of
the holiday, extracts from Pesach Agada with all explanations of the meanings
of each food product on the table. Everybody had to drink 4 glasses of wine
or juice.
Children were watching with a great interest where and how afikoman
was hidden. And then they were looking for it very hard. How happy were they
when they finally found it!
After that vocal group "Shalom" sang a few Pesach songs:
"Ma nishtana", "Khad Gadya" and "Dayanu". Children
took an active part in the holiday: they asked questions and sang 2 songs. The
second part of the holiday was secular; and people sang Jewish songs and danced
"Freilekhs". The members of the Youth Club prepared the Quiz about
the history and procedure of the holiday. As always all connoisseurs got their
prizes. People danced and sang songs till the late night.
Everybody enjoyed the holiday. It was really great!
Svetlana Makarovskaya
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