Seder at the Battle of Monte Cassino -1944 | Passover haggadah by The Village Shul

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I am sure we all have family stories of Sedarim we went to, or our parents or grandparents attended and told us about and then became part of our family traditions. I grew up in the 1950s hearing stories about WW2. My father in his early thirties had been in the British Army as the Senior Jewish Chaplain – Central Mediterranean Forces. In April 1944 the Allied forces in Italy (British Eighth Army and US Fifth Army) were held up at Monte Cassino south of Rome.

My father organised a Seder about twelve miles behind the front line so that Jewish troops at the front could get permission to attend. I heard all about this from my father, but, in addition, he wrote letters to my mother describing the arrangements. The letters are an amazing diary recording his war service overseas. Three letters describe in detail how he organised a Seder for 500 soldiers on Friday night 7 April 1944 within the constant sound of gunfire. References below in quotes are from his letters.

He also organized that those Jewish soldiers who wanted could have a matzah ration instead of bread over Pesach. “The only snag was that the Army produced it in North Africa. Actually they released flower to the Jewish bakers of N. Africa who produced it under the supervision of the Chief Rabbi of Algiers. Algerian matzah is thicker and coarser than our matzah and so I was somewhat disappointed but they sent over 12 tons for the boys out here.” My father told me (exaggerating somewhat I suppose) that the matzahs were so hard that you could run a tank track over them without breaking them.

My father had “made a reconnaissance over the whole area and there was not one building standing that [he] could use”. He picked a site convenient for those who would be attending, but “had no staff and just nothing” for the Seder. He hired civilian Italians to help with preparations. Army Ordnance lent him two of their largest ‘store tents’ which arrived on the Monday before Pesach and were turned into a huge marquee. Finding tables and chairs was impossible, so he obtained planks of wood from a nearby Royal Engineers store. These were turned into 50 foot tables, and planks of wood on petrol cans served as chairs. Hessian sacking was used instead of table cloths. My father managed to borrow an electric generator, and somehow obtained light fittings. Each table was decorated with flowers picked from the fields.

Ten days before Pesach a platoon of “Palestinians” (Jewish troops from mandated Palestine) who my father knew well moved near to the location. My father managed to arrange that they would stay there until after the Seder so that they could help with the preparations. Every evening in the week before Pesach, he held rehearsals with them of the songs they were going to sing at the Seder.

My father then got special authority to draw food from the Army stores obtaining “salmon, jam, potatoes, dried fruit, fresh fruit, cocoa, milk, sugar”. “Every man had a hard-boiled egg”. He told my mother, “you will be amazed to hear that in all we purchased two thousand eggs 1400 for the Americans and 600 for ourselves.” Those eggs cost 9 old pence each - equivalent today to £1.33 each (£2,660 total cost of eggs). “In addition to all this I knew I could get or rather ‘shnorrer’ some food from the Americans. I was able to get huge supplies of tuna fish, fresh butter, tinned fruits, fruit juices, enough for all our requirements.” Not satisfied with the coarse North African matzahs, my father again ‘shnorrered’ American matzahs “sufficient for the Seder and for anyone who wanted to take two lbs with him”. A small quantity of kosher wine came by air from North Africa, “so anyone wanting kosher wine could have had it.” My father also “borrowed” special stoves for the cooking.

Haggadahs were ordered from Palestine and arrived on the Friday before Yom Tov. (See copy of the Haggadah my father used then, and at each Seder thereafter and I always keep on my own Seder table.) My father gave one to each soldier who attended with a slip printed that Friday “with the compliments of the Senior Jewish Chaplain”. Not relying on the arrival in time of those Haggadahs, my father had also obtained sufficient from the Americans (see copy of an American forces Haggadah).

Having notified all units that the Seder would be held at a particular cross roads, all the roads for miles around were posted up with direction boards. “Passover Service 3 miles ahead, or right or left and each sign had a big Magen David”. The soldiers who came were from many countries. “While predominantly British, there were Palestinians, Canadians, S. Africans, New Zealanders, Poles and Australians. Many came straight out of the line. Everyone was surprised at the magnificent spread. They never dreamed that there would be anything so elaborate so far forward for so many.”

“I started off with Maariv Service, gave an address and then we had the Seder. The questions were asked by the son of the Senior South African Jewish Chaplain, who happened to be one of the South Africans present, and I had one officer or other rank of each country represented to read one portion. Interspersed with various parts of the Haggadah I fitted in the Palestinian songs which I had rehearsed and the result was to keep it extremely interesting all the time. One chap who came was what is known technically as “bomb happy”. He had been in the line for five or six days, and came with hand grenades already primed in his pockets. In as tactful a manner as possible I had to get him to put them down on the table and stop playing around with them. “Bomb happy” is an expression of nervous exhaustion or mental nervousness as result of long period under fire.”

“How can I convey to you what an impression the whole thing made on all those present? When it was over the way the boys came to me to thank me for what I had done was simply breath taking. None of them will ever forget it as long as they live. This Seder will always be a binding link for them to their Judaism.”

And so it was. For the rest of their lives my parents would be attending a wedding, a bar mitzvah or a communal event, and someone would come up out of the blue and say I was at the Seder – the Seder at the Battle of Monte Cassino.

I wrote this reminiscence because it demonstrates the unwillingness of my father to accept any obstacle that most would have just accepted. Today our Rabbi Yisroel of the Village Shul and his Rebbetzen, Devorah Leah, continue the tradition of refusing to accept what many would see as an impossible situation, and challenging us all to turn these difficult times into an opportunity for deepening the ties with our traditions. This Village Shul Haggadah, the Shiurim, the Shul Services, the Challah baking, the delivery of Challot, the Zeddakah, the telephone calls, the emails all demonstrate that the Jewish religious fighting spirit continues in the Village Shul.

haggadah Section: Bareich

Source: Jonathan Berman