The one where the girls get scarlet fever right before Passover.
Listen to the episode
Join hosts Merav and Batya as they delve into all things All-of-a-Kind Family. Today we are joined by guests Shoshana Flax and Rena Mills, and the four of us talk about the holiday of Passover/Pesach, contagious diseases, and what happens when they hit at the same time.
We’ll also talk about Shoshana and Reena’s connections to Jewish institutions like Towneand Village Synagogue, and Camp Cejwin, where Rena met some of the Brenner family, who were the direct inspirations for Sydney Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family books.
Our chapter in summary
Mama’s girls come down with scarlet fever in the week leading up to the festival of Passover (or Pesach). The house is quarantined by order of the Board of Health. Mama works frantically, playing nurse to the girls, and making preparations for Passover as the number of helpers dwindles. Thankfully, the family support system is in place, and visitors and helpers supply the family with gifts and groceries, and the girls are even able to participate in the Passover rituals a little from their sickroom. Eventually the quarantine is lifted, much to everyone’s relief.
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Show Notes:
Our Guests: Shoshana Flax and Rena Mills
Shoshana Flax and Rena Mills are cousins. Rena is an alumna of Camp Cejwin, a Jewish summer camp that was shaped in part by Sydney Taylor’s theories of education. Shoshana is well known in the literary world and works for The Horn Book, You can find her at shoshanaflax.com and look up her terrific Parodies for Charities.
Camp Cejwin and Camp Ramah
Camp Ramah, a popular summer destination for Jewish kids from 8-16, has locations all over North America, and helps kids immerse in the Jewish world of intention and action, while also sharpening life skills and outdoor prowess through camping trips, competitions, classes, group bonding, and song. We’ll see in this episode how certain traditions from Camp Cejwin were intentionally carried over to Camp Ramah.
Scarlet fever
Scarlet fever manifests when a strep throat infection creates a rash on the skin, leading to an overall “flushed” or “rashed” appearance on exposed skin like the cheeks and back. It can also present with a sore throat and sinus pressure, and often swelling of the tongue. Scarlet fever was poorly understood in this period and was often followed by fumigation, as seen in The Velveteen Rabbit (1922). It’s possible that the experience of the flu pandemic (1918-1920) also influenced the potentially cruel fate of the toys at the end of the book.
Mama’s furniture trauma
Mama’s beautiful European furniture was sold when she and Papa came to America together, after Ella and maybe Henny were born. As From Sarah to Sydney tells it: “Cilly felt that the buyers at the auction conspired to keep the prices unfairly low. She stood in the street with tears running down her face, watching her gorgeous furniture sold for a song. She never forgot this grief and often told her daughters of her devastation.” The front room furniture described in the books comes as a windfall when Cilly and Morris rent the apartment where All-of-a-Kind Family is set, buying it from their landlady — piano, carpets and all — for just $100.
Passover / Pesach
Passover is one of the three main festivals of the Jewish year, and was once celebrated as the new year, bringing rebirth with the spring. The festival as celebrated today includes a lot of rules, rituals, and a great deal of cleaning, plus “turning over” of the kitchen with a special Passover set of dishes, silverware, pots, pans, and other food vessels, making it both a joyous and a sometimes exhausting time for Jewish families. Among the traditions is the eating of the unleavened bread called matzah, and removing from one’s home all chametz (leavened bread products) prior to the holiday.
The Pesach Seder: Symbols and rituals
The seder is an elaborate ritual, full of symbolism, call-and-response, explanations, and ceremony. The leader of the seder traditionally wears a white garment called a kittel. The word ‘seder‘ means ‘order’ and the ritual follows a set order, explaining the story of the exodus from Egypt to the children, and allowing the children to ask the Four Questions in turn. There’s meaning in every item on the seder plate, and symbols like the matzah play a role not just in the meal, but in the entertainment, as tradition includes a lively hunt for the hidden afikomen. And we also look foward to a visit from the prophet Elijah, towards the end of the seder.
The Family Haggadah
Merav checked in with her father about which Haggadah the Brenner family might be using. From his research: There were English language haggadot from the 1720s on, including new ones produced in the 19th century. Richly illustrated haggadot start coming out in the 1920s, so there may be some conflation on Sydney Taylor’s part with haggadot from later in her childhood. Thank you Rabbi Hoffman!
The Angel of Death
The angel of death is pivotal to the story of the exodus from Egypt, playing a part in the last and worst plague visited upon Pharaoh and the families of Egypt, the death of the firstborn. Given the high mortality rate of scarlet fever in the 1910s, it’s no coincidence that the specter of death hovers over this chapter, despite its cheerful tone. (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, via the Internet Archive. Uncredited.)
Dish Barrel
Before cardboard boxes became commonly available, many household items — including dishes — were shipped and stored in wooden barrels. Keeping strictly kosher for Passover requires dishes and kitchen utensils that have never been used with chametz, which means that most dishes will need to be switched out for a “Passover set,” which is kept packed away in a dish barrel during the rest of the year. Mama is working out of a small kitchen in a small apartment, so it’s likely that the dish barrel is kept at Papa’s shop, or masquerades a table during the year.
Morris chair
William Morris’s influence on modern décor is still very much alive. His assertion that things could be both functional and beautiful continue to inspire generations of designers. His signature contribution to design, outside of his well-beloved textiles, was the Morris Chair, which frequently featured the ability to recline by ratcheting the chair backwards with a series of large pegs which held the back securely in place at whichever angle was desired.
Singing at the seder
There are many songs that are traditional for singing at the seder. Some are liturgical, some are psalms, or sourced from other parts of the tanach, and many are folk songs and songs of praise. Some drinking songs have also snuck in, including the ever-popular chad gadyah, which, like any good patter or cumulative song, builds on its premise until it’s ridiculous and God comes to put a stop to all this clamor. Many families and communities sing well into the night with songs like “Who Knows One?” and many different Hebrew acrostics and songs of praise.
St. Nicholas magazine
Popular childhood reading for the Brenner girls, the long-running St. Nicholas magazine was founded in 1873 and frequently contained stories, and gorgeous illustrations, to help tired children who had had long days to read stories to fire their imaginations without feeling like they were being condescended to. Founder Mary Mapes Dodge, author of Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates, wanted children to have control over what they read. The magazine was a direct influence on Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White, and featured Edna St. Vincent Millay, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner among its young adult contest winners.
Other references in this episode:
Dr. Rudin Sims Bishop. The Sydney Taylor Book award. The Monkey’s Paw. Stuyvesant Town. Maxwell House Haggadah. Judean revolt against Rome. The Klingon language. The Power of Light (1980) by I. B. Singer. The Borrowers (1952) by Mary Norton.