Hi there.

My name is Mindy Schiller and I am a civilian (though my brother’s in the Navy). This is a very odd sort of posting, probably, but I’m an editor at a Jewish magazine (World Jewish Digest) and I’d like to feature a story of some sort on how Jews in the military celebrate the Passover seders. The story could be anything from a profile on a chaplain based in Irag to a more “newsy” story on, say, an increase in number of military Jews celebrating the holiday. Basically, I’m posting this thread because I’m wondering if anyone knows the best person/institution to contact to find out more. Do any of you know of a particularly remarkable chaplain I could interview and profile about his Passover experiences?

Any information would be helpful. Thank you so much in advance and I look forward to hearing from you. (My work email, just in case you’d like to respond directly, is ).

Thank you!

Mindy

Mindy,

Search the JIG blog pages.  Last year there was a great writeup by Risa Simon with a link that had loads of pictures.

http://www.jewsingreen.com/home/blog/comments/passover_in_baghdad_2007/

As the Jewish Prime Vendor that makes Passover Seder Kits, I can tell you that the quantity ordered this year is about 25-30% more than last year.  This is because of the better job the DLA is doing in getting the word out that these items are available.

Dee
Jewish Prime Vendor

This is the link for the pictures: http://www.homepage.mac.com/risasimon

Best of luck on your article, hope you post in on JIG as well.

Dee

Thank you!! I will try that! And I can definitely post it on JIG when it’s finished.

Best,
Mindy

If you put Passover in the search box, you will get a string of articles and comments over the past few years.

Dee

Will do! Thanks.

We did both Seders in Afghanistan last year. Had extra Rabbis in to help down range. Might want to get a hold of Rabbi (MAJ) Felzenberg of the 82nd Airborne (Aviation Bde) who has done seders in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He was featured in Christian Science Monitor last November as being representative of Jewish Chaplains.

Great Lakes Naval Base (Recruit Training) is having a Seder this year as well.