"Remember." This one word is the essence of the eight-dayJewish celebration of Passover, which begins at sundown Friday.
"Passover is a celebration of memory," says Elie Wiesel, author,journalist and Nobel Peace prize laureate. "It is also for thefamily."
And Wiesel has made it a special point this year to helpfamilies celebrate. "A Passover Seder: Presented by Elie Wiesel,"airing at 5 p.m. today on WTTW-Channel 11, is a 30-minute videoproduced by Mindy Mervis and introduced by Wiesel.
Geared toward explaining the holiday to children, the videoshows three generations of a family with traditional story, song andfood of the seder - the dinner that takes place the first or firstand second nights of Passover - to tell the story of the Jews' flightfrom Egypt and slavery. It also weaves in animation andillustrations.
"We Jews imagine what happened to our forefathers and we are torelive their escape," Wiesel says. "Therefore, it is a very specialholiday and a beautiful holiday because it celebrates freedom.
"And we know more than many generations how essential freedomis."
But, says Ira Steingroot, author of Keeping Passover: EverythingYou Need to Know to Bring the Ancient Tradition to Life and to CreateYour Own Passover Celebration (Harper Collins: $13), "Passover ismore than just the celebration of historical events.
"Through the haggadah (or the book used to tell the tale), weare asked to feel this is happening to us.
"So, in a certain way the haggadah has the job of a historyteacher," says Steingroot, who recently visited Chicago. "Itpersonalizes the story and makes it more than a series of dates andwars."
Steingroot who works at Cody's Books in Berkeley, Calif., wrotehis book because even though he oversees one of the world's largestcollections of Passover merchandise, he says, "I didn't have oneresource I could point to for people who wanted the basics as well asmore tradition and maybe a new addition."
Steingroot also wanted to help people who had not "beenscrupulous in following all the traditions. The holiday is sodetailed that it allows persons to celebrate within their own uniqueway of being Jewish," he says.
And the telling of the tale can conform to many different waysbecause within the past 20 years, Steingroot says, there has been anexpansion of haggadah tradition.
"There are now many alternative haggadot - women, lesbian,vegeterian, socialist, African American - because basically, thePassover story is the story of liberation, so, this story can be astepping off to discuss any kind of oppression."
And if you need a special focus for remembering this year,Passover falls close to the 50-year anniversaries of the liberationof the Nazi camps where millions of people - mostly Jews - wereexterminated during World War II.
Wiesel, who survived the camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald,loosing his mother, father and sister, says, "This year, of course, Iremember the last holiday I celebrated at home in my town beforebeing deported and . . . so, maybe we can remember 50 years ofliberation and remember those less privileged."
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