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I've groused here before about the Christian bias of the Order of the Eastern Star. I wish I'd planned ahead and announced that I wouldn't be at tonight's big Installation of New Officers because it's a religious holiday for my in-laws (who are extremely non-observant, only "culturally Jewish," but could have been used behind their backs to make a point).

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Observant, non observant, cultural -- HECK put some Matzo ball soup, charoses, and brisket in front of me and *I'LL* observe Passover.

*MOST* Jewish people that I know "observe" (or at least EAT) the first two nights of Passover. Many of the Christians I know can't tell you when the first night of Passover is.

What percentage of people in Order of the Eastern Star are Jewish?? You need to train those that make decisions to take the group into account.

Me too! I like the Passover foods better than my husband does, in fact, maybe because they're exotic to me.

I'd guess maybe 3% of our chapter members are Jewish, and none of the officers. (That's about 6 out of 200 registered members, and 18 officers.) So it's not really a big concern for the club, I would just complain about it to make a point.

i>Many of the Christians I know can't tell you when the first night of Passover is.

Sunset on the first day after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

:)

Thank you for playing, "Guess the Holidays". Your answer "first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox" is not a winner. Please buy more Kosher-for-passover coke and play again when you find another cultural sensitivity question on the inside of the bottlecap.

I was curious about the fact that this is the wrong answer, and looked it up on the web, and found this interesting entry in Wikipedia:

"The calculation of Easter in the Christian church (first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox), uses its own definition for the equinox — it always falls on March 21. The earliest possible Easter date in any year is therefore March 22.

I *thought* that that "fixed equinox" would turn out to be the answer, but, noooooo—it's a lot more complicated than that. Just as a small example, there's the extra month added in leap year...

Passover, as everyone knows, is "the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and lasts seven days in Israel, eight days in the Diaspora (although Reform Jews observe a seven-day period).

When is Nisan? That turns out to have a truly complicated answer.

Again quoting WikiPedia,

"The "modern" form [of the Hebrew calendar] is a fixed arithmetic lunisolar calendar. Because of the roughly 11 day difference between twelve lunar months and one solar year, the calendar repeats in a Metonic 19-year cycle of 235 lunar months, with an extra lunar month added once every two or three years, for a total of 7 times per 19 years."

I poked at it a little longer before deciding that I knew as much as I needed to, and way more than was appropriate to respond to your comment.

Oh, and the easiest way to find out when passover is is to type "when is passover " into Google. The old fashioned way is to look at the jewish calendar that your relatives in Israel sent you as a New Year's gift, or the perpetual Jewish calendar that they sent you as a birthday present.

Your answer "first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox" is not a winner.

Dude. Read my post. What you have in quotes is NOT what I said at all.

But now we all know how smart *you* are.

You're right; I'm demonstrably an idiot. I quoted the Wiki article that searching on *your* phrase led me to, instead of what you actually wrote, and didn't notice that there had been several important substitutions. Teach me to compose LJ comments in a hurry when my mind is elsewhere.

So, what *is* sunset, etc., since it isn't easter? It sure isn't Passover. Some sites lead me to think it's a modern pagan ritual date based on ancient ritual, but I didn't find an exact match.

Which does bring up the question, should the Masons be held accountable if they hold important rituals opposite pagan holidays as well as against Jewish ones?

Oh, and the easiest way to find out when passover is is to type "when is passover " into Google.

Huh! I didn't know you could do that. Cool!

I'm a big fan of the calendar tools at Kaluach (.com, .net, and .org). They have a service where they'll send you an email reminder of all holidays and New Moons, and you can set up reminders for yahrzeits (memorial days) as well.

There are Jews in OES, but we're rather rare. Most of us are like me: I joined to serve as Worthy Patron with my girlfriend (now wife) when she was "moving up the chairs". I also served as Chaplain, a rather, um, mind-expanding experience for a nice Jewish boy %^).

OES was founded by a Victorian Mason as his concept of what an ideal Victorian ladies' club should be, as a haven for the female relatives of Masons. The president is called the Worthy Matron, but there are some ritual functions that are allowed only to men, who must be Masons. The WM's counterpart is called the Worthy Patron, and that's about all you really need to know: his job really is rather patronizing.

The thing is, OES makes noises about being non-sectarian, but in truth it's a firmly Protestant organization, far more than the Freemasons under whose umbrella they operate. They're firmly stuck in, oh, 1957 Kansas, and consist primarily of sweet blue-haired Presbyterian ladies who have no notion that singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" might be problematic for a couple of their members. Or actually, I think their attitude was that, hey, that was the club, and they'll let me in 'cause they desperately need something with a Y-chromosome to be WP, but if I had an issue it was my own lookout. There's no way they're gonna change anything for ~~the token Jew-boy~~ their members who are of the Hebrew faith.

Can't say as I blame 'em, really: I pretty much knew that going in. It is how it is, and on my list of battles, fighting that one was never a great priority. Beth and I keep our dues up, but she works nights and our chapter merged with one in a neighboring town, so we haven't been back pretty much since our year in the big chairs.

And I turn out to be mistaken: our newest line officer was late for the business meeting because she went to temple first.

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