APRIL 24 • APRIL 26 • MAY 6 METRO DETROIT IS EL IN' El< Take Part.Take Pride. Make room on your seder plate for a tomato, recalling the modern-day slavery of farm laborers. New For Seder Plate Tomato symbolizes modern-day 'slavery.' Steve Lipman New York Jewish Week Itiesday, April 24 YOM HAZIKARON Memorial Ceremony 7:00 p.m. (No charge) A Day to Remember Israel's Fallen Soldiers The Berman Center for the Performing Arts 6600 w. Maple Road West Bloomfield For information, contact Gina at 248-642-1643 wish Federation ormetitOMLFTAN CCIMOct Thursday, April 26 YOM HA'ATZMAUT CELEBRATION Israel Independence Day 5:00 p.m. - Doors Open 6:00 p.m. - Concert YEHUDA! 7:45 p.m. - Dinner For information, contact Jeff at 248-386-1625, ext. 228 Akiva Hebrew Day School Fee for program 41611 =tow= Sunday, May 6 WALK FOR ISRAEL Come Celebrate Israel! 10 am. - Program 12 Noon Kosher Lunch (No chaige) For information, contact Andre at 248-737-8700 1:00 p.m. - Walk begins Temple Shir Shalom 50 April 5 • 2012 T he pre-Passover shopping list of Rabbi Paula Marcus is grow- ing this year. A pulpit rabbi in California, she will buy the standard items this week: some kosher food, some boxes of matzah, some bottles of wine. And one non- standard item: a tomato. The tomato is for her seder plate, not for a recipe. A member of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, an interdenomi- national, Israeli-based organization that numbers modern-day slavery among its educational and advocacy issues, Marcus will put the tomato in the center of her seder plate — alongside the traditional bitter herbs, charoset, parsley, shank bone and eggs, and an orange, a recent addition in many homes — as a symbol of contemporary slavery. Moved by the two visits to tomato- growing country in Florida that delega- tions of RHR rabbis conducted in the last year, meeting with often-underpaid and overworked tomato pickers, and conducting "pray-ins" at supermarkets that had not signed a Fair Food Act that guarantees higher pay and better working conditions, the rabbi decided to put a tomato on her seder table as a reminder of the workers' plight. "It's just obvious to me:" she says. "We imagine what it was like to be slaves and celebrate our freedom:' she wrote recently in San Francisco's Jweekly newspaper. "But the truth is, there are people in our own country who don't have to imagine what it is like to be a slave." Over the last few years, the issues of actual slavery (estimates of people working today as slaves in the world today range between 12 and 27 mil- lion) and workers' rights (many, like the tomato pickers in Florida, are said to work in near-slavery conditions) have achieved greater visibility in parts of the Jewish community. Especially at Passover, the holiday that commemo- rates the ancient Hebrews' freedom from slavery. Individual seder leaders, and organizations like RHR (which produces an "anti-slavery" Haggadah supplement and table cards that con- tain stories of modern-day slavery), Boston's Workmen's Circle branch and Congregation Dorshei Tzedek in West Newton, Mass., have incorporated reminders of farm workers' rights into their seder readings. This year the tomato — along with words of accompanying text — becomes the latest symbolic food offi- cially added to some seder tables. RHR and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (the central labor repre- sentative of agricultural workers "in low-wage jobs" in Florida) this week announced that they are urging Jewish homes to put a tomato on their seder plate. "The foods on the seder plate are meant to elicit questions that lead to the telling of the story of the Exodus:' according to a RHRJCIW statement. "We hope the tomato will lead to ques- tions about the legacy of slavery today and to discussion about the progress being made by the CIW — supported by Jewish communities — to bring about a just, slavery-free workplace." During a holiday that fosters both memory and creativity (think of the new tradition of the Miriam's Cup, which celebrates women's role in deliv- erance), the seder plate, whose rituals were established at least a millennium ago, has increasingly become that pal- ette on which Jews express their social, political and theological concerns. Symbolic items that have found their way onto the seder plate over the years: • Potato peelings or beets to com- memorate Jews who starved during the Holocaust. • A fourth matzah for Soviet Jews who were not free to practice Judaism. • A roasted potato or a boiled beet, in place of a shank bone, for vegetarians