The Rise and Fall of the Third Seder in America

Sometime before World War II, many U.S. Jews began celebrating a third ritual meal on Passover, as Jenna Weissman Joselit writes:

A supplement to, rather than a substitute for, the . . . first and second seders commonly observed outside of Israel, it was usually held during the latter part of Passover. More of a communal gathering, a public event, than an intimate family occasion, its origins date to the interwar years. In a replay of that era’s cultural politics, when both socialism and Zionism held high cachet among East European Jewish immigrants, some attribute its creation to the Arbeter Ring (Workmen’s Circle); other, equally insistent voices, credit the Labor Zionist Farband. There’s no consensus, either, on when the third seder made its debut. Some say 1922, others 1927, and still others aren’t sure whether it’s 1932 or 1937.

No matter. At some point within a few years of one another, both communal organizations harnessed the structure and sensibility of the traditional seder—or, more to the point, perhaps, that of the model seder conducted in their respective afternoon schools—to their own ends. Emending, interpolating, politicizing, contemporizing, and theatricalizing the venerable Haggadah, the Arbeter Ring produced a text called Naye hagode shel peysakh (the new Passover Haggadah); the Farband, in turn, produced its own Hagode shel peysakh farn dritn seder (Passover Haggadah for the third Seder). . . .

The Farband linked the age-old story of deliverance to the establishment of a just and equitable homeland for the Jews, while the Arbeter Ring, for its part, linked the same story to the struggle for economic justice and political freedom more generally. . . . Well into the 1980s, people in New York and Chicago turned out in droves for the annual third seder of their choice, held in a hotel ballroom grand enough to accommodate over 1,000 guests. For a generation or two, the event drew a crowd even in places where the number of Jews was much smaller. They came for the camaraderie, not the food: to lay claim to and celebrate a common history, a shared ideology, and a better future.

Read more at Tablet

More about: American Jewish History, American Judaism, History & Ideas, Passover, Seder, Socialism, Zionism

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF