PASSOVER
Rules of
Engagement Party planners provide tips to keep your Zoom seder guests participating. SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
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ll-in participation is the key to a successful Zoom seder, according to four local event planners whose clients have asked for help with Zoom weddings, Zoom bar and bat mitzvahs, Zoom baby naming ceremonies and Zoom holiday parties during this past year of pandemic isolation. The idea is to have everyone sense togetherness at a singular event while keeping active, so they don’t feel that they are just looking at another screen. While the four — Gail Ball, Janice Cherkasky, Susan Siegal and Andrea Solomon — are looking forward to when they again can plan in-person activities, this past year of online events provided several lessons for planning this year’s Passover seders. “One person has to be in Gail Ball charge,” said Cherkasky of Franklin, whose business is Gourmet Parties. “That doesn’t mean the person in charge does everything. It means that the person in charge involves everybody so that the seder is Janice well organized.” Cherasky Involving everybody means having someone specifically coordinating food choices and sources, someone else making assignments for the service and yet another handling the technology. Cherkasky explains that, as a group, people first need to decide how they want to arrange for the food with three considerations in mind — the level of kosher observance, the distances between homes and the total number of guests entering into the celebration. Whether people live close together or far
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apart, they can decide to have every household individually cooking the same menu with recipes provided in advance by email. If they live close together and the number of households seem manageable, each dish can be assigned to one person with one household assuming distribution tasks — receiving the foods, dividing up the portions and setting up packages as specialties are delivered and picked up. Recipes can be emailed at a later date so that others can try out the ethnic delicacies on their own. “An easy choice for the food could be
APPEALING TO KIDS Gail Ball of Gail Ball Events in West Bloomfield advises that special consideration should be given so that very young children feel connected to the service and, therefore, the holiday and Judaism. “Children could be asked to draw pictures of what is being observed or even given Passover coloring books,” Ball said. “The seder should be interactive for them as well as the adults as they show what has been drawn.” Susan Siegal, a planner in partnership with Terri Trepeck for the Event Bliss & Gifts party store in Franklin, likes to enhance the seder by assigning parts of the Haggadah to guests and asking them to sing their parts to a Broadway melody indiSusan Siegal vidually chosen. “It really gets everyone involved,” Siegal said. “Others have to try to name the seder tune. It’s different, and it’s fun.” Solomon believes the service is made
“AN EASY CHOICE FOR FOOD IS ORDERING FROM ONE CATERER SO THE SAME MEALS ARE PICKED UP BY EACH HOUSEHOLD.” — PARTY PLANNER JANICE CHERKASKY
ordering from a specific caterer so that the same meals could be picked up individually by a member of each household,” Cherkasky said. While one person is in charge of the service, everyone should have a part in recitation, they agree. The first decision has to do with choosing the Haggadah, which could be mailed or emailed in advance or projected on the Zoom screen so everyone can follow along. “I have a friend who writes a Haggadah, and it’s not long so it will work for our Zoom service, but, of course, that option must be agreed upon in advance,” said Solomon of West Bloomfield. If the Haggadah is projected on the screen, one with colorful pictures would be more interesting, especially for the youngsters.
more interesting with young children in costumes if they are so inclined. This makes them feel they have stepped into the times being marked by the service. Setting the table in similar ways also adds to the feeling of oneness, Solomon advises. While participants can agree on the kinds of centerpieces, Solomon is glad when a relative likes to provide small crafted objects to enhance the mood. One year, she brought plastic frogs to increase connections to the holiday story. Depending on the distance of the families and friends interacting this year, interested participants can decide on symbolic objects to be sent by mail or delivered. With the search for the afikoman, adults can agree to hide it in a comparable place in each household.
