In the Jewish Deaf Community Center’s ten-year history with eight years of hosting the community Passover Seders, the attendance broke records with one hundred thirty five (135) people on the second evening of Passover, March 28, 2002 at Adat Ari El in Valley Village. In addition, two large projection screens that played multimedia video were part of the highlights of the Seder.
Besides the deaf individuals participating the Seder, some hearing Jewish family members joined the festivities. In addition to many local residents, some out-of-town guests joyously came: Sandra Frankel of Maryland with her two children, Austin and Lauren; Daniel Rosenthal of San Francisco, Evelyn Zola of Concord, CA; Bill Parker of Arizona and Melinda Weinrib of New York. Also driving from Riverside (which consisted a good 75-90 minutes away from North Hollywood) were the entire Kurs family, Harold Levy and Helen Inga. A few deaf-blind Jewish individuals, along with their interpreters, also participated.
The multimedia format was used this year for the fourth time with further expansion and revisions based on post-event surveys. This format made it possible to present a visual way to conduct the Seder and provide access to both deaf and hearing people. It shows individuals leading and presenting prayers in American Sign Language and voice-over interpretations. In the past, the video showed only one person signing out the Haggadah passages and songs. Starting last year, the “cast” in the video increased to five people which included: Bernard Bragg as the host, Jeff Dichter as the leader, the deaf Rabbi Rebecca Dubowe giving the blessings, Joshua Soudakoff asking the Four Questions and Sharon Ann Dror, the JDCC President, signing the songs, “Dayenu” (Satisfied Enough) and “Chad Gadyo” (One Kid [Goat]).
By viewing the large projection screens, the guests of each table had the chance to take turns reading and sign ing out the text of the Haggadah and the songs. This helped keep the pace even among the guests. The Ruth/Allen Ziegler Foundation generously gave continued financial support for this multimedia project.
Before the Seder began, Jeff Dichter announced the record-breaking attendance and the possibility of creating a joint community Seder between Jewish Deaf Community Center and the Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf next year. Three representatives from both groups will meet together to discuss on a plan of action and details.
Questionnaires were given out to the guests and the preliminary responses (more to come later) generally indicated that the multimedia Haggadah was beneficial to many of them, and for the future Passover Seders, they want to keep both the video and book formats instead of only the book format. Child care for younger children in another room was not only much praised but needed so that the parents could spend more time following the Seder. A large part of the guests favored the joint JDCC TBS community seder. A few commented about how well planned the multimedia Seder was. Other suggestions included one more projection screen and eight guests to a table instead of ten.
