PESACH KOSHER V'SAMEACH!

  Regardless of circumstances the number of Karaganda inhabitants participating in Pesach Seder is constantly increasing. Therefore, the leaders of Hesed Miriam decided to conduct several holiday events at the end of March.

  Jewish Organizations conducted first Pesach Seder on 27 March 2002. About 110-120 people participated in it; there also were two rabbies from Israel and one of the performed Seder. That day the cafe was closed for other visitors; we used disposable dishes to keep kosher. All necessary components for Seder including grape juice and kosher matzoth from Israel were on the table. Mikhail Falikovich the Chairman of Karaganda Community, Sergey Lokhvitskiy and Bella Kamenetskaya, director of Miriam Hesed celebrated everybody. Sunday school children sang a few songs and asked all the necessary questions: "Ma nishtana?" Magid was accompanied with a lot of stories, which basically have Hasid background. Rabbi redeemed the afikoman found by the children for a beautiful present.

"Pesach in Family Club" took place in on 31st of March in Children Puppet Show Theatre. About 60 people participated in it, basically children and their parents from Family Club of Miriam Community Center and student of Sunday Consul school. There was an exhibition named "The World of Pesach Agada", which presented many bright versions of the traditional text. Children listened the adapted version of the Exodus story and answered the quiz questions. The student of Sunday School sang some Pesach songs; there were a lot of games and dances, including the favorite one - "Klezmers" (choreagrapher and head of the dance group - Yana Syomina). The highlight of the holiday was puppet show "The Magic Matzoth" prepared by the theatre "Buratino" using the scenario brought by Irina Kozhanovskaya the Director of JCC from Kiev seminar. And of course, everybody enjoyed sweets.

  On 4th April, 8th day of Pesach 150-160 members of the Community of Hesed Miriam came to cafe "Bibigul". It was Pesach full of traditional content. They had everything on the tables: matzoth, haroset, hazaret, betzim excluding only kosher wine. After Irina Kozhanovskaya celebrated everybody with the holiday; vocal group "Shalom" (Rodion and Inessa Shatilovs and Fyodor Malin) sang song "Israel, come back to me". After that Alexander Abramovich, Coordinator of Religious Program acted as the "Head of Seder", covering the ritual and ideal content of Pesach. Yakov Gamarnik the Chairman of Hesed Miriam helped him init by telling about mitsvot Urhas, Karpas and Yahats. After the story about 10 Egyptian tortures vocal group "Shalom" sang song "Dayenu" then "The song about the vineyard" and "Gold Jerusalem". Vitaliy Futornyy sang some Pesach songs accompanying himself on the guitar. Boris Propishchan provided musical illustration of the evening. During the holiday meal there was a quiz dedicated to Pesach theme and a contest "What is it made from? The participants had to taste a cake (baked by Irina Revenko) and cutlets (cooked by Larissa Brodskaya) and nobody could define they were made of matzoth. Between 3rd and 4th glasses the holiday started to decline even "David psalm"... was still being heard.