Stories of Freedom and Exodus | Passover haggadah by Jacqueline Dressler

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Let us read these stores from around the world:

HAITI

When Hurricane Matthew struck Haiti in October of 2016, the ferocious wind and waves took everything Françoise Inocent had. She lost her home and all her belongings, but did not despair. Françoise began to help others, volunteering with Solidarite Fanm Aysisyèn (SOFA), a local women’s empowerment group. Working tirelessly, she helped rebuild homes, organize a mobile clinic to tend to dozens of wounded and sick, and distribute hygiene kits to prevent cholera. Today, Françoise is beginning to recover from her own loss—and she keeps serving as a beacon of hope to others.

BURMA

Khun Khit San is a member of the Shan ethnic group—a minority in Burma. His people have faced persecution because of their ethnic heritage and identity, suffering years of violent attacks by the military. Although Burma has taken steps toward freedom and democracy in recent years, the army continues to persecute minorities like the Shan, Kachin, Karen, Ta’ang and Rohingya—by torturing civilians and displacing people from their homes. Khit San is just 27, but he has already dedicated his life to stopping this violence. In 2010, he co-founded Kaung Rwai Social Action Network (KSAN), which now works in 25 villages mobilizing youth to become activists, community leaders and human rights educators. They have garnered national media attention for their cause and are inspiring a new generation to fight for justice, equality and peace.

GUATEMALA

Covering their faces with scarves to maintain their anonymity, 15 Guatemalan women courageously testified in 2016 before a war crimes tribunal about their harrowing experiences of abuse at the hands of soldiers during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. They faced intimidation and threats for telling their stories, but persevered, saying: “We are telling the truth. We want to be heard. And we want justice.” Ultimately, they got the justice they sought. In an unprecedented victory, the two military officials were sentenced to a total of 360 years in prison.

INDIA

Sunita Jaiswal was 15 when she first got married and 17 when she gave birth to her first child. Her husband drank heavily and beat her. Her parents encouraged her to be patient—and she had no choice because she couldn’t support herself alone. But she soon found a way to change her story. She discovered Azad Foundation, an AJWS grantee that trains low-income women to become professional drivers. Azad taught her to drive and gave her lessons in self-defense and human rights. With their support, she filed for divorce and reported her husband to the police.

Today Sunita works as a private chauffeur and is able to support herself and keep her children and younger siblings in school. She also made a new friend—whom she later chose, of her own will, to marry. Her new husband supports her career fully. “This is what I liked the most about him,” Sunita says. “There are very few people who actually support us and help us go forward in life.”

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Julienne Lusenge was a radio broadcaster in the late ’90s at the beginning of Congo’s brutal civil war. When women from around the country began calling in to her radio show describing horrific violence and rape, she decided it must be stopped. Julienne founded an organization called Female Solidarity for Integrated Peace and Development (SOFEPADI) and started training girls and women to stand up to their attackers. She provided trauma counseling to survivors and dispelled stigma that left so many survivors isolated and alone. Today, Julienne and SOFEPADI are defending thousands of women in Congolese courts and are winning hundreds of cases—bringing hope that rule of law and justice can return.

Let us consider this story of a former slave and his master:

In 1864, after 32 long years in the service of his master, Jourdon Anderson and his wife, Amanda, escaped a life of slavery when Union Army soldiers freed them from the plantation on which they had been working so tirelessly. They grasped the opportunity with vigor, quickly moved to Ohio where Jourdon could find paid work with which to support his growing family, and didn’t look back. Then, a year later, shortly after the end of the Civil War, Jourdon received a desperate letter from Patrick Henry Anderson, the man who used to own him, in which he was asked to return to work on the plantation and rescue his ailing business.

Jourdon’s reply to the person who enslaved his family, dictated from his home on August 7th, is everything you could wish for, and quite rightly was subsequently reprinted in numerous newspapers. Jourdon Anderson never returned to Big Spring, Tennessee. He passed away in 1907, aged 81, and is buried alongside his wife who died six years later. Together they had a total of eleven children.

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.

haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story