NORWICH – After a 20 year hiatus, Passover Seder was held at the Jewish Community Center on 72 S. Broad St. Tuesday night with approximately 35 members of the Jewish community in attendance.
The celebration is part of this week’s most celebrated holiday of the year, Passover, which began at sundown Monday, and commemorates the Exodus of the Israelites from ancient Egypt. At a ritual dinner called Seder, Jews from throughout the region recounted how Moses championed his people's freedom, and how God sent plagues upon the Egyptians when the pharaoh refused to grant it. The story tells how God parted the Red Sea, allowing the Jews to escape, and how they wondered in the dessert for 40 years before arriving in Canaan, their Promised Land.
Participants attributed the gathering to the efforts of Rabbi Dawn Rose from Brooklyn who travels to the area for such special holidays and occasions.
“Dawn has been exceptional. She pulled us together. Our community here has changed from a dying congregation, with little motivation to do anything, to a positive one,” said Dr. Linda Horovitz of Norwich.
During the celebration, Rabbi Rose said she recognized “so little life coming together” when she visited Norwich back in 2005. “You’ve come out of narrow straights. You did this. You’ve effected your own coming out of Israel and that’s respectable.”
Rabbi Rose blessed the items on the Sedar Plate as the ancient stories and Hebrew songs symbolizing each stage in the journey were read and sung together. Each Sedar Plate holds food items, including a roasted lamb shankbone, “to symbolize God’s reaching back to save us” ; parsley “to herald the birth of the world”; bitter herbs “to represent the bitterness of slavery,” and Charoses, a mixture of finely chopped dapples, nuts and cinnamon, commonly known as the mortar that held the Jews together. The meal was accompanied by several other meaningful condiments, including Matzohs, the unleavened bread that represents how the Jews fled Egypt before allowing their bread to rise.
On each table, there were toy frogs, locusts and other items symbolizing the 10 plagues God sent to punish the Egyptians. Rabbi Rose asked participants to call out “the plagues” in today’s world. Cancer, floods, greed, prejudice and drug and alcohol abuse were among those mentioned.
“In doing so, we lessen our cup of joy for those who are suffering still,” she said.
“She is very lively,” Daniel Faulkner from Pharsalia said of the Rabbi’s style. “She makes it comfortable for all of us.”
Adam Regenbogen of Sanford said the local Jewish community isn’t large enough to support Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews. “This service is meaningful to everybody,” he said.
Horovitz said the event signifies “that once again we were able to leave a land, but maintain our cohesiveness even when we didn’t actually have a homeland or a place to be.”

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