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April 9, 2004/Nisan 18 5764, Vol. 56, No. 29
Passover in Saddam Hussein's palace
JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - When Rabbi Mitchell Ackerson asks why this Passover is different than any other, the answer involves Saddam Hussein.
Ackerson, the senior Jewish chaplain for Operation Iraqi Freedom, was set to lead historic seders this week for Jewish servicepeople and civilians in Saddam's former Presidential Palace in Baghdad.
As he readied a seder for up to 125 Jewish troops, civilian administrators and diplomats, and even a few Iraqi Jews, Ackerson considered the prospect of celebrating the Jewish people's liberation from slavery in Egypt in Saddam's palace appropriate.
"We've all come in partnership to provide freedom for this country, in a place where freedom was ripped apart," Ackerson told JTA in a phone interview late last week from Baghdad.
The seder marked another historic milestone: In a rare move, the Department of Defense requisitioned "seder kits" from a civilian supplier for the estimated 1,000 Jews serving in the Iraqi war effort and elsewhere.
"This is the true spiritual victory over an evil empire," said Rabbi Jacob Goldstein, joint forces command chaplain for the National Guard in New York, who has helped ferry religious supplies to Jewish troops in the war.
Other organizations are also pitching in for Passover. The Aleph Institute in Surfside, Fla., has sent Passover supplies to more than 1,300 soldiers around the world, continuing a tradition it has upheld since 1995.
The group, which is affiliated with Chabad-Lubavitch, shipped thousands of pounds of shmura matzo - the matzo baked especially for Passover following strict guidelines - as well as seder plates, Haggadot and rations to soldiers from Haiti to Italy to Iraq.
Rabbi Menachem "Mendy" Katz, of the Aleph Institute, said the organization sends out Passover and other holiday supplies to any member of the military that responds to its e-mails seeking out Jews.
Other organizations including the Jewish War Veterans of New Jersey, the Jewish Federation of Rockland County, N.Y., and a newly launched group called the Jewish Soldiers Foundation have also helped fund similar efforts.
These groups stepped in after some said Jewish troops were not receiving sufficient holiday supplies on time for other holidays.
Ackerson, meanwhile, said the Defense Department, via its Defense Logistics Agency, purchased enough supplies for Jewish servicepeople in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Qatar.
They include two seder kits with Haggadot, seder plates that include the necessary ritual foods, along with kosher-for-Passover rations for 14 more meals, he said.
The military's official kosher supplier, My Own Meals of Chicago, produced about 4,000 MREs, or meals ready to eat, said its founder and president, Mary Ann Jackson.
Goldstein is among those who welcome the government's supplying Jewish troops with food and religious items.
He spent this past Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur in Iraq, and was "floored" to find kosher meals - enough that troops had leftovers for Sukkot, which he marked by helping erect a sukkah outside the main doors to Saddam's main palace.
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