• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

New Setting for Old Traditions

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Carolyn Click, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Apr. 12--Family to celebrate Passover in S.C. after exodus of sorts

The lamb shank and the hard boiled egg roasted in Bobbi and George Matzner's Passover kitchen while cheerful chaos reigned around the table.

Daughter Jennifer Matzner Abrams stirred up the charoset, a mixture of chopped apples, nuts, spices and wine. Daughter-in-law Eveda Matzner and her 2-year-old daughter, Hallie Kate, prepared chicken soup and rolled matzah balls.

George Matzner ground pungent horseradish on the back deck as matriarch Bobbi Matzner ticked off items on her to-do list.

"Every year I make lists," she said. "I go crazy." But this year? "This year I'm trying to delegate."

This year, too, the family is rummaging through boxes stored in the garage, looking for special Passover dishes packed and moved from New York.

After years of Long Island Passover celebrations, the Matzners have followed their daughter and son south. Tonight, on the first night of Passover, they will celebrate the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and mark their own, wonderful exodus to a place that has embraced them.

"We love it here," said Bobbi Matzner. "Everybody has been so wonderful to us."

A TRIAL RUN

Son-in-law Andrew Abrams acknowledges he never saw the family's New York exodus coming.

"Absolutely not," he laughed. "I had no intentions of bringing (my wife's) whole family down."

Jennifer Abrams, an emergency room physician at Palmetto Health Baptist, was the first Matzner to head south after marrying Andrew, a database administrator and Columbia native, nearly four years ago.

Then her brother Daniel Matzner, a chiropractor, moved his family here last year. The elder Matzners came to visit often and "did a trial run" two winters ago, said Andrew Abrams.

Although they loved New York, "I think they have kind of immersed themselves in life here," enjoying the warmer weather and more leisurely pace, he said.

The Matzners quickly embraced Columbia's Jewish community. They are members of Beth Shalom Synagogue, a conservative congregation, but have plenty of friends at the reformed Tree of Life Congregation. Hallie goes to the Columbia Jewish Day School.

"We like the pace, the people and the seasons," Bobbi Matzner said.

And the openness. "The respect that the different groups here have for each other is wonderful," she said.

This year, the Matzners decided to make the move permanent and put their Long Island house on the market.

They bought a house off Hard Scrabble Road but hope to build once their New York real estate is sold.

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION

"There is a saying," Bobbi Matzner begins.

Her husband George finishes the sentence in Hebrew: "l'dor va dor," which means "from generation to generation."

This Passover reveals the wisdom of the ancient expression.

It is Bobbi Matzner's new kitchen that is the hub of Passover preparation, with its freezer already full of brisket, chopped liver and other foods cooked especially for Passover.

But this year, daughter Jennifer Abrams -- for the first time -- will host the first night of Passover and its celebratory meal, called a Seder, in the Abrams' Blythewood home.

"I'm excited, but I'm overwhelmed," she said. "It's always a huge amount of fun when it starts."

There will be 13 gathered tonight as they tell the ancient story leading to the Hebrews' escape from bondage in Egypt -- how God instructed the Israelites to kill a lamb and, with its blood, mark the doors of Hebrew households. The blood ensured that God would "pass over" them as he unleashed his final plague.

Only when the first-born sons of the Egyptians were killed did the Pharaoh finally grant the Hebrews freedom. But, even then, the Egyptians chased after them to the Red Sea.

The Matzners have their own exodus stories that might be spoken of these next two nights as they remember those who came before them and the trials they have endured.

There was George Matzner's mother who, in the first months of Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, locked up her home in Rudnick and began walking with four other families toward Russia. George, whose birth name is Gad, was born in Russia in 1942, his mother so malnourished she did not know she was having labor pains.

"He was less than a kilo. They thought he was going to die," said Bobbi Matzner. There would be years of hardship, a return to Poland and immigration to Israel before the family came to America in 1953.

Bobbi Matzner's mother escaped Germany before the war, finally obtaining a visa in 1938 on the day of Kristallnacht, "the night of broken glass," when the Nazis torched hundreds of synagogues, businesses and homes. Her father was sent to a labor camp that night, finally making his way to America the next year via England.

Of the elder Matzners' grandparents, "the only one who survived the Holocaust was my father's father," Bobbi Matzner said. He was imprisoned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp.

Sometime this evening, they will recall the words of George's father, Issac Matzner, who, after eating gefilte fish at Passover, would always announce in a combination of Yiddish and English, "da fishes must svimmin!' That was a signal to bring on the plum brandy, the shlivovitz.

Traditionally, four glasses of wine are drunk during the evening, and another poured for Elijah, the ancient prophet who in Jewish tradition will herald the return of the messiah.

A TABLE OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS

On this warm spring day, Bobbi Matzner sampled the charoset and offered quick advice: "It needs more wine and more cinnamon."

"No, it doesn't. It needs more apple," Jennifer countered.

"More wine. Cinnamon," she said firmly.

"We are going to make a strange charoset this year, with pecans for Andrew," because he likes the Southern delicacy and doesn't like walnuts. It's just part of embracing the South.

There are other kinds of changes, too.

Although Bobbi Matzner in recent years has suffered from post-polio syndrome and must use a motorized scooter, she is still very much in charge of the Passover kitchen and the celebration, Jennifer Abrams noted wryly.

But, yes, this year, others have a role.

"We all auditioned for our parts," said daughter-in-law Eveda.

The elder Matzners on Thursday will host the second of the eight nights of Passover, with 17 around the table. Andrew Abrams' parents will be there, as will Eveda's. There also will be some Christian friends at the Seder table.

Bobbi Matzner has tried to delegate but keeps checking her list, just as her mother and her mother-in-law did in Passovers past.

"It's hard to give up," she said, then added, "My mother-in-law finally relinquished making the gefilte fish at age 90."

Reach Click at (803) 771-8386.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, The State, Columbia, S.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The State (Columbia, S.C.)

More News in this Category