Our trip to Japan for a long-awaited dream retirement tour of textiles and arts was thwarted by the tsunami of 2011.
En route, we learned of the unspeakable tragedy and from our stopping off point in Hawaii spent days negotiating cancelations. This was aided by frantic calls and emails from Jewish mothers of all ages, genders and nationalities who knew our intended plans.
The trip was to conclude neatly with spending Passover in San Francisco with family members on the way home.
Fast forward to 2013. The same trip was finally a go. After two years of pent up enthusiasm, with military precision we packed our one carry-on suitcase each.
But just before leaving it belatedly dawned on us that we would not be able to repeat our family’s west coast seder. The dates were wrong.
Instead we would be spending Passover in Kyoto as strangers in a strange land.
Without an inch to spare for a real Haggadah, we shimmied a paper copy of an abbreviated seder in one bag. A box of matzah was an impossible fantasy.
With very little time before departing and the lonely prospect of the two of us sitting with four glasses of sake, and sushi (gefilte fish?) balls, we consulted Google for Jews in Kyoto. There were Tokyo opportunities, but nothing in Kyoto.
Why not host our own? After meeting others in our group, we had a feeling they might be open to joining us in marking the holiday.
The only way the hotel would provide a separate space for us was if we paid an exorbitant price. Asking if we could host a “wine” get together for a half-hour in the hotel lounge was out of the question. This was our first encounter with levels of the strict Japanese hierarchy where anything out of ordinary protocol was just not done.
So, summoning Mickey Rooney (c’mon kids, let’s have a seder), we invited all to our hotel room. Most came, and as the only Jews we anticipated that it would be fun to tell the Passover story and share our rituals.
Shopping for the objects on the seder plate was a memorable adventure and an exercise in creativity. We checked several grocery stores, but only the easy pieces presented themselves, the egg and greens, even though we were not sure what the green bushy vegetable was.
How to find a bitter herb? No problem; wasabi was ever present.
But the shank bone presented a problem. We located a butcher and with sign language and a bit of Google Translate, he indicated that he understood. After a few minutes, a more senior butcher appeared and we again went through the request. He, too, disappeared for a few minutes.
At last through the swinging door an older butcher, the most senior butcher, greeted us and with empty hands shook his head which we understood was his answer that a bone was not available. Selling bones was just not done.
After scouting around we happened on a slim vacuum packed lamb riblet, our new style shank bone. A crushed granola bar mixed with a bit of wine became the pretend charoset.
But finding matzah in Kyoto was a real challenge. After a frustrating effort, it proved to be futile, so we compromised with the rice crackers that had the closest snap to that matzah pop when breaking it in half.
At the appointed time the company arrived and crowded around on the bed, couch and floor of our cramped hotel room. Our head table, a stool draped with a towel held the precious paper seder plate.
My husband Richard became the master storyteller. He related the Exodus with flourish and interpreted the events and lessons in the modern context of personal and global freedom.
For the plagues, we wrote each on a piece of paper and participants drew them out of a cup to act them out to the delight of all. Volunteers read about the four sons, and we all laughed as each remarked how appropriate his reading was.
The assembled were happy to be a part of the celebration. They weren’t just respectful, but truly interested.
At the end, one woman asked if we were going to open the door for Elijah. Imagine our surprise to hear that question. “Oh, I was married to a Jewish man for 25 years, and made seders every one of them.”
Then two other women, sisters, piped up and said, “We were raised Catholic and both married Jewish men. We are seder mavens.”
And another, a former professor who lives alone in a Washington state rain forest related that her former boyfriend of 12 years was Jewish and she knew gefilte fish and charoset well.
So, in looking for a Jewish experience in a strange land, we found it under our noses. Not matzah, however.
Last year in Kyoto. Next year, perhaps, in Jerusalem.
Nina Edelman is a full-time fiber artist, former librarian at the Milwaukee Jewish Day School and a freelance writer.
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