In Philadelphia, linking Passover to the Civil War

By Kristin E. Holmes

Inquirer Staff Writer
To adorn his Passover table, J.A. Joel could find no sweet paste to represent the mortar that Jews used to build Egyptian storehouses. Instead, he used the closest symbol he could find - a brick.

Joel had no choice but to improvise. He was in the Union Army on the front lines of the Civil War, but still he found a way to observe the festival that marks the Israelites' freedom from slavery.

That scene, which Joel later recounted in a letter, was reenacted last week as part of a yearlong program in the Philadelphia region to illuminate the lives of Jews during the War Between the States. It was one of 60 events here since November in One Book, One Jewish Community.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100402_In_Philadelphia__linking_Passover_to_the_Civil_War.html

"I started looking into it, and I discovered a tremendous amount of Jewish participation in the Civil War: in the army, politics, and espionage," Horn said.

The main fictional character in her story is Union spy Jacob Rappaport, who kills his uncle, a Confederate spy, during a Passover seder in New Orleans.

That says it all