By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — Preface: Russian Jews revere me, but I worry that their traditional Seder might evoke analogies between the unjustly vilified Pharaoh and my benign leadership. To avert this, I have supplied them with a Haggadah from his perspective to guide their Seders. Seder means order, and they are ordered to use my Haggadah or be arrested and imprisoned.
Washing of Hands: Blessed be God, Pharoah of the Universe, who commanded us to wash our hands of any crimes we are falsely accused of having committed.
The Passover Story: We were slavs in Egypt under the beneficent rule of Pharoah (the word Pharoah in Russian could be translated as Czar or President). A Jewish agitator named Moses, who had formerly been a jester, misled the Jewish slavs into believing they would be better off if they joined NATO (Nazi Aggressor Traitor Organization) by abandoning Egypt. Pharoah wisely refused to let them leave knowing that they would be unemployed in the dessert and lose their pyramid construction jobs.
Moses conjured ten plagues to change Pharoah’s mind:
The closing of falafel chain restaurants.
Seizure of royal barges.
Freezing of Egyptian gold in foreign banks.
Financial sanctions against Pharoah, the managers of his pyramid schemes, and his daughter.
A drought that dries up the Nile.
A boycott of Egyptian straw and mud bricks.
A blight on fava beans.
Hebrew graffiti covering up the hieroglyphics on the walls of royal tombs.
Euthanizing of cat deities.
Outraged by these unwarranted plagues, Pharoah launched a military operation against Jewish huts and villages. When he cut off their water and food supplies, he sang Lo Dayenu; When he razed their huts, he sang Lo Dayneu; when his soldiers massacred and raped Jewish civilians, he sang Lo Dayenu.
The Jews futilely tried to escape carrying blinis on their backs, but the sun baked the blinis into hard thin flatbreads called matzah. On Passover, they eat matzah to recall why they should never defy any Pharoah in the future.
Realizing they had made a terrible mistake trying to leave and join NATO, the Jews surrendered proclaiming, “Once a slav, always a slav, Next year in Moscow!”
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.