Prisoner's Secret Seder: Sugar, Raisins, and Soviet Ingenuity!

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Dr. Jack Cohen’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

[Music] I like this story. Ysef Mandelovich was a Soviet refusnic who was in prison for about 20 years. He tells the story of the first time that he wanted to keep Pesak wants to make a he wants to make a Pesak seder in in the in prison in the gulach, right? And he has a postcard from the Jewish museum in Ushaline with the picture of a pesak seder plate. So he knows what's pesak seder plate. So he knows what's going to go on it. Here's what he does. His father give sent him raisins that he kept for 6 years. 6 years he held on to these raisins. Every day as a prisoner you were entitled to one spoon of sugar which most of the prisoners just swallowed out like this. The taste of sugar. He had the self-discipline to hold back and he saved his sugar. After a month of saving his sugar, he takes the raisins that are six years old and he takes the uh the the sugar. He gets

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1. 0:00[Music] I like this story. Ysef Mandelovich was a Soviet refusnic who was in prison for…
2. 0:31pesak seder plate. So he knows what's going to go on it. Here's what he does.…
3. 1:04he takes the uh the the sugar. He gets himself some water, boils it all, and…
4. 1:37floor. So we all the inmates ate their onions quickly. He saved his put in a…
5. 2:07says we're going to make a cedar tonight. You're crazy. He tells his friend we're going…
6. 2:38the officers. He writes like this. Freedom is the ability to decide we won't let others…

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