Lastly, we see an orange that sits on the seder plate. This orange and the meaning behind it dates back to the 1980s when we first saw a crust of bread, precisely what we cannot eat over these 8 days, grace the seder plate of Susannah Heschel, a Jewish feminist scholar. It followed a comment made by a male leader in Judaism that "a lesbian in Judaism is like a crust of bread on a seder plate." The following year, Heschel realized it probably didn't make the most sense to have bread on a seder plate, even if it was for a point, so instead replaced it with an orange, following yet another comment by a man who said "a woman on the bimah is like an orange on the seder plate." Why these men see the seder plate as the ultimate qualifier for what is normal is unknown, but an orange on the seder plate now represents the fruitfulness of a Judaism that welcomes all.


haggadah Section: Maggid - Beginning