So I did a thing

 Passover is the quintessential Jewish holiday.  The story of the  Exodus from Egypt forms the theological base from which all Jewish practice springs.  Passover is also a family-oriented holiday, with observance based in the home rather than in the synagogue.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a long time, you’ve heard me reminisce about my family’s Passover celebrations.  Do a search and you’ll find over a dozen posts devoted to the holiday.  

You’ll find several posts devoted to a family heirloom. 

My paternal grandparents were born in Ukraine and immigrated to the United States just before World War I.  Sometime in the 1920’s my grandfather bought a Seder plate.  The Seder is the home-based service we conduct in observance of Passover, and a Seder plate is designed to hold the symbols of the holiday.

My father inherited the Seder plate,  and it made an appearance at every Passover during my childhood, and during my daughters’ childhood, and … My father passed away in 2015, my mother followed in 2022.  My sisters still live in my parents’ house, and they have the Seder plate.  They’re afraid to take it out of the house, afraid it might break … so it hasn’t been used in recent years, as we’ve held our Seders elsewhere.

Here’s a picture of the plate.

The back of the plate bears the inscription:  BARDIGER, London, and TEPPER, London with a circular seal that says, Manufactured by Ridgway England.

This design was first registered by Ridgways, the Staffordshire manufacturer of the plate, in 1923.

"Bardiger" is a retailer mark for Solomon Bardiger's china shop, which was  at 180 Brick Lane, London. Solomon was a Ukrainian immigrant (just like my grandparents who bought the plate!).  He came to England in 1890 and traded in a wide variety of goods, but became most well known for his Judaica table wares. It was he who commissioned Ridgways to make the plate.

In addition to red, the plate was also made in black, and in blue.

One of the blue plates found its way into the Brooklyn Children's Museum.  Another made it into the Spurlock Museum of World Cultures in Illinois. And there’s one in the Jewish Museum.

If you go to sites like eBay and Etsy, you’ll find similar plates, mostly black or blue, for sale at various price points.  In fact, I have seen only one other red plate on line, and it was not for sale.

But when I saw a blue one at an extremely reasonable price …

Well, here’s my latest acquisition.

I don’t think I’ll actually use it for the Seder — we have several others — so I’ll probably get a display stand and find a place for it …