A Seder in Pakistan

HEARD ‘ROUND WEXWORLD

I am inviting people from the embassy community to my seder in Islamabad — plus a Pakistani academic who researches perceptions of the Holocaust in Pakistan and Iran, and a Pakistani Jew I read about through a posting of Jeremy Bandler’s (WGFA, Class 10) and reached out to via twitter @Jew_Pakistani.
 

I got matzah via Amazon.com, and the USAID Mission Director supplied me with matzah meal for the matzah ball soup. He will actually be leading the seder. I will be making most things out of the Jerusalem cookbook by Ottolenghi, but I am still searching for a way to incorporate date syrup into the haroset, and a good side dish for the pomegranate brisket.  

Last time I hosted a seder was in Monrovia, Liberia. My husband and I still remember the “Monrovia matzah miracle”- when the matzah arrived in the very last possible diplomatic mail pouch before the seder. On seder night my husband, who was a consular officer in Liberia was called away to visit an American who had been imprisoned. Put a new spin on the meaning of freedom for those of us at the seder.

Dinah Zeltser Winant, a Wexner Graduate Fellowship alumna (Class 11), is a Humanitarian Affairs Officer with the US Agency for International Development currently posted to Pakistan and will soon transition to South Africa. Her previous postings include Central Asia, Liberia, Somalia, Uganda, Bosnia, Georgia, Russia and Macedonia. She is a graduate of the Heller/Hornstein program at Brandeis University. She can be reached at dzeltser@juno.com.