Weekly Chasidic Story #1428 (5785-30) 23 Nissan 5785 (April 21, 2025)

"Passover Seder in the Safed' Prison"

Must he agree? In his mind he pictured it: sitting at a Seder table while locked in prison with detained immigrants at the Safed police station. The very idea jarred him. Suddenly, a thought lit up his mind. "Wait a moment… I'm a religious Jew. Passover is about freedom. How can I voluntarily celebrate that behind bars? No way!"

Why This Week? 1) A main theme in this week's Torah reading, Shemini, is the Kosher Dietary Laws; 2) Last week was the festival of the Seventh Day of Pesach, while next week (on Nisan 30) is our annual celebration here, "Tsfat Liberation Day"; 3) Next week is the Shaloshim (30 days since the departure to Heaven) of a special member of the Tsfat Chabad community, who shares the same first name as the hero of the above story. So this story is dedicated for the soul elevation of YITZCHAK-MOSHE BEN YOSEF-CHAYIM Kadosh.

Story in PDF format for more convenient printing.

Passover Seder in the Safed Prison

During the years of World War II, loads of Jewish refugees were fleeing Nazi occupied lands and arriving on foot in the Holy Land, after having been smuggled across Israel's northern borders with Lebanon and Syria. These were still the days of the British Mandate, and the desperate Jewish immigrants were deemed illegal by the British administrators, despite their endangered lives.

Many of these refugees made it to the town of Tsfat. There, Yitzhak-Moshe Zilber, a modest Jewish shopkeeper, made it his life's work to help them. He developed a quiet, efficient network: find the refugees, move them safely south, hide them in places they were unlikely to be found.

Zilber's store - a dusty little place selling paint and tools in what is now Tzfat's 'Kikar HaMagenim'* - was rarely open. It wasn't really much of a business anyway. Rather, it was Zilber's 'office,' for his real job? Helping Jews in trouble.

Everyone knew what he was up to - the smugglers, the refugees, even the British. In fact, the British trusted him. When they caught a group of immigrants, they'd call him in. He'd vouch for them, work out a deal, and promise to bring them to court on the appointed date.

And he always did - even if it meant chasing people down all over the country, paying for their travel, calming their nerves. Sometimes he even paid them for the day they'd miss at work just to show up.

And if the court ruled someone must be deported? Zilber worked his quiet magic, pulling strings with sympathetic officers to delay - or quietly cancel - the order.

But one time it was much more complicated.

A few days before Passover, a British military jeep screeched to a halt outside his little shop. Out stepped a British police officer. "A large group of Jews was caught trying to cross the border," he said crisply. "They're in custody. Come with me."

The dozens of refugees, including many women and children without the heads of their families, had been caught near Metula [the town nearest the Lebanese border]. The smugglers fled, leaving the frightened families behind. The group was being held at the Canaan police station. Not that there was any intention to send them back to Nazi territory - but there was talk they'd be deported to some distant camp in another land. Meanwhile, the holiday was approaching. They asked for kosher food for Passover.

The British officers were at a loss. Kosher food? Passover? They called Zilber.

"How can I possibly do this alone?" he asked the officer, eyes widening at the sight of the crowd. "I don't have the means to provide the large food supplies required, or even large enough pots to cook for this many! However, if you would release them into my care, I could place them with families here, or possibly in local hotels."

The reply was swift and final: "They're not leaving the jail."

So Zilber got to work. He rallied food suppliers, hotel owners, kitchen volunteers. Yet, whenever he visualized the Seder - in the police station - his enthusiasm waned. A flicker of thought kept disturbing him: "How can I willfully imprison myself on Passover?"

As the holiday rapidly approached, a bright idea popped into his mind. On the day before Passover, he requested an urgent meeting with the police chief and the military governor.

"My honorable sirs," he began, "as much as I long to lead a Seder for those poor souls, I simply cannot. Passover is 'The Festival of Our Freedom," the celebration of our emerging from imprisonment to liberty. A Jew must feel free. I cannot, in good conscience, lock myself up to celebrate it. They might not have a choice. But I do. Please understand: I cannot lead a Seder in a jail. I just can't."

The British high officials paused, unsure. They stared at each other. They had been relying on Zilber; they knew he was irreplaceable.

Finally, they shrugged and one of them said, "Fine. Take them. Take them all. After the holiday we'll decide what to do."

And so a large truck rumbled up to the jail, and the detainees - all of them - were delivered not to a courtroom, but to Zilber's home. He quickly moved them into a freshly cleaned and koshered school building. From the hotels 'Herzliya'** and 'Meiberg' came giant cooking pots. White tablecloths were laid out, candles were lit. Matzah came from the 'Lodmir' factory,*** while wine flowed generously from the Carmel Mizrachi Winery in Zichron Yaakov above the Mediterranean Coast.

And then there were the local residents. Volunteers were stirring bubbling pots in the kitchen. From every corner of the Jewish Quarter of Tsfat, pots of homemade food had appeared - unasked.

Not only that, most of the locals wrapped up their Seders early that night so they could go join the celebration at the big Seder with the refugees. Zilber even invited the British police chief, who came, nibbled on some matzah, drank wine (a lot of wine), and left with a whole crate of it as a gift.

After the holiday, most of the group was moved to local hotels, but none of them saw the inside of the Canaan police station again. Nor was a single one ever brought before a judge.

In the years after, whenever he was asked about the episode, Zilber would say with a sly smile, "Drinking good wine can bring very different people closer, and that's all I shall say."
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* Kikar HaMaganim was the address of the art gallery I helped to open in 1979, and then managed until 1982, in partnership with chasidic artist Yaakov Kascemacher ?. It was directly opposite the location of Yitzhak-Moshe Zilber's long departed store!
** Currently the site of two Chabad seminaries for young Jewish women lacking a strong Torah education, one for Israelis and the other for fluent English speakers, mostly Americans.
***The Yehuda Matzos Company was and still is owned by the orthodox Ludmir family from Tsfat, who are seven generations in Israel. On its premises, matzos have been baked since 1921. In 1949, they moved the factory to Jerusalem. [from yehudamatzos.co.il]

Source: Heavily revised by Yerachmiel Tilles from a "ChatGPT" translation of an article (with the adjacent photo) in the Hebrew weekly Sichat HaShavua, based on the book, "Sefer Meron." [If you wish to inspect what I intend by "heavily revised," here is a link to the original Hebrew.]

Why This Week? 1) A main theme in this week's Torah reading, Shemini, is the Kosher Dietary Laws; 2) Last week was the festival of the Seventh Day of Pesach, while next week (on Nisan 30) is the annual celebration here, "Zefat Liberation Day" (in 1948); 3) Next week is the Shaloshim (30 days since the departure to Heaven) of a special member of the Tsfat Chabad community, who shares the same first name as the hero of the above story. So this story is dedicated for the soul elevation of YITZCHAK-MOSHE BEN YOSEF-CHAYIM Kadosh..

Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and chief editor of this website (and of KabbalaOnline.org). He has hundreds of published stories to his credit, and many have been translated into other languages. He tells them live at Ascent nearly every Saturday night.

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