My favorite part of the Seder plate is the orange.
If you’ve been to a Reform or liberal-minded Seder, you may have encountered the orange, which is quite literally an unorthodox Passover symbol. Most know the ceremonial citrus as an emblem of feminism, a challenge to a rabbi’s supposed admonishment that a woman has no more place on the bimah than does an orange on a Seder plate. It turns out this story is not just apocrypha but a misdirect — scholar Susannah Heschel originally proposed the orange in the 1980s as a gesture of support for the LGBTQ+ community. Whatever your interpretation, this show of inclusion for those who face discrimination for their gender or sexuality remains unfortunately topical today.
Yet there is another, more-meta level at which the orange has always fascinated me: the very idea of the Seder plate as a palette for social commentary. I understand the ritual reading of the Haggadah as a call to action. The story of the Exodus is timeless because the existence of oppression around the world, of Jews or otherwise, is unceasing. We sing “Dayenu” to celebrate our miraculous progress, then we fill Elijah’s cup to remember how much work there is still to do.
The orange — the first modern Pesach symbol I ever experienced — puts an exclamation point on this worldview. An avatar of contemporary oppression on the Seder plate underscores the sanctity of solidarity. It reminds us that, having known persecution for millennia, we Jews have a duty to identify with marginalized peoples throughout our own world. That until all of us are free, the status quo is not enough.
The other Seder plate addition I have seen in recent years is an olive, to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinian people. This tradition goes back at least two decades, and I started included it in my Seders long before the current war in Gaza. I usually use olive oil instead of the fruit itself — in liquid form, it pairs with the ritual salt water (representing teardrops) to form twin bowls of symbolic sadness.
Seder plate or not, from the time I was old enough to follow international news it has been impossible to ignore the tensions between the Pesach celebration and the plight of the Palestinians. The Israeli government, while purporting to act on behalf of the global diaspora, has long subjected its gentile neighbors to indignity, discrimination, and violence. However much blame you ascribe to each side for the decades of conflict, whatever choices you think previous generations of political leaders should have made, regardless of your view of the prospects for lasting peace in the Holy Land, the parallels with the story of Passover — of an entire people trapped in a place where they cannot live freely — are apparent to anyone who cares to notice them.
Each year, this dissonance casts a shadow over the Seder proceedings. While we pledge universal solidarity with the oppressed, what of those who suffer in our name? As we recite the Ten Plagues and pour out our wine, ought not we mourn the innocent victims of contemporary conflict as we do our ancient enemies? When we conclude the service and announce the “next year in Jerusalem,” whom will we invite to our future table?
Such questions feel all the more urgent now, as we prepare for our Seders amid unconscionable carnage in Gaza.
With that in mind, I am proposing another contemporary supplement to the progressive Seder plate. This year, as we celebrate our first Pesach in Rhode Island in a decade, I will add a marshmallow twist candy.
Marshmallow twists, textured chunks of dark chocolate stuffed with vaguely vanilla creme, are my favorite in the niche genre of shelf-stable Kosher-for-Passover sweets.1 But as with the ritual karpas, for which there is no specific requisite green vegetable, you can use whatever Seder-approved dessert brings you the most nostalgia. Jelly rings will do just fine. I’m told some people enjoy macaroons, even if I’ve come to believe that they (or at least the jarred kind I grew up with) are holdovers from some forgotten Eleventh Plague. Whatever you pick need only be some sort of chocolate or sweet confection that feels like an avatar of your family’s traditions.
I propose this candy as a symbol of the sweetness of Jewish culture beyond religiosity. The Haggadah says nothing about these mass-produced chametz-free confections, but almost every Jew I know has strong nostalgia for some form of them — just as the Torah makes no mention of brisket or latkes or corned beef, and no scripture attests to the healing powers of matzoh ball soup. However pious or secular you may be, we are connected to one another through our customs, our songs, and our stories. For all the very real ways that anti-Semitism manifests in our modern world, the diaspora is strong and vibrant and proud. That you can buy marshmallow twists and macaroons at your average supermarket is a testament to how far we’ve come.
These confections’ distinctive nostalgia-evoking sugariness is important for another reason too: it is one of the few Passover-adjacent flavors I could think of that would not pair well with olive oil.
The devastation we are witnessing in Gaza is not compatible with my understanding of Judaism. I can speak only for myself; I know that not all, perhaps not even most, Jewish Americans share this perspective. Nonetheless, it horrifies me to see Israel rain destruction upon an entire people while claiming to act in my name. It offends me that so many gentiles call themselves our allies while they marginalize antiwar Jewish voices, or even embrace anti-Semitism in the name of Zionism. And it mystifies me that anyone within the Jewish community, having faced our own persecution from ancient Egypt to the Holocaust to October 7, could be anything short of distraught by the death and suffering that is the backdrop to this year’s Festival of Freedom.
And so, as with the ritual eating of the bitter herb maror,2 I humbly suggest creating a deliberately unpleasant flavor experience by dipping your marshmallow twist (or jelly ring or macaroon) into the olive oil — just as you would the greens into the salt water and the horseradish into the charoset.
The crumbly residue in the bowl of oil will symbolize the wasteful, senseless ruination of lands where olive trees have grown for generations. And let the odd juxtaposition of the candy’s cloying sweetness and the oil’s robust richness be a reminder that the fight against oppression, so central to our identity, does not comport with the destruction of Gaza.
Seders in the Pollis household have always been motley affairs. They are incongruous amalgamations of established orthodoxy and modern mindsets; of rote repetition and heartfelt sincerity; of secular Jews and confused but open-minded gentiles; of Manischewitz and drinks that people actually enjoy.3
In that vein, I will try to replicate the spirit of my family’s Haggadah — written in a distinctly sanctimonious tone that isn’t quite as self-aware as it thinks it is — in introducing the new symbol on our Seder plate. When the moment comes, I will hold the confection aloft and say something like:
Behold, the marshmallow twist! This candy reminds us of the sweetness of our culture, and the way our traditions connect us to each other and our forebears. By dipping it in the olive oil, we taste the dissonance between our pledge of solidarity with the oppressed and the injustice that we now see carried out in our name.
I hope you’ll consider joining me in this ritual at your own Seders. (Please let me know if you do, and how you phrase it.)
The Seder is a profound demonstration of Jewish morality. Of our intolerance for our oppression. Of the universalism necessary to repair the world. Of the humanity we share even with those who fight against us. As we proclaim our empathy with those whom we called our enemies and affirm our commitment to lasting peace, perhaps we should invert the classic Pesach question: Why are all other nights different than this?
I had assumed marshmallow twists were universal to the Jewish-American experience, but an informal poll I conducted while writing this essay revealed otherwise.
Many people like the horseradish, including me! But the point is that you’re not supposed to.
I also genuinely like Manischewitz, but I’m typically the only one at the table who does.