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Kids with Special Needs Celebrate Passover Early with Hands-On Model Matzah Factory April 1, 2012

Local children with special needs will participate in a hands-on pre-Passover experience as a Model Matzah Factory is set up for them. The children will re-enact the process of manufacturing Matzah, from grinding the flour to kneading the dough, to baking the Matzahs, all within 18 minutes, the time limit in which Matzah must be made. Rabbi Shmuel Wilhelm, director of the Friendship Circle will facilitate the interactive program. The event is free of charge and is open to Jewish families with children with special needs. (It is critical to note that the Matzah produced at the Model Matzah Factory are not to be used on Passover, actual Passover Matzah needs to be manufactured in a highly controlled environment to ensure that it does not become leavened. Hand-made Matzah for Passover is available for purchase)

The Model Matzah Factory will be held on Sunday, April 1st Princeton, NJ and is open to Jewish families with children and teens with special needs. For location information and to RSVP, please call 609-683-7240 or emailmercerfriends@gmail.com.  There is no cost to attend.

In addition, there will be entertainment by ‘Woodn Drums’. The children with special needs and their siblings willenjoy an interactive drum circle by Mark Wood. A drum circle is a medium where people, of all ages and abilities, come together to create music while building community at the same time.  Participants make up rhythms as they go along; no musical experience is necessary. 

The eight-day festival of Passover is celebrated this year from sundown on Friday night, April 6, until after nightfall on April 14. Passover commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and will be celebrated with festive “Seder” dinners on April 6 and 7. Other holiday observances include restricting the consumption of leavened products such as bread and pasta, instead eating unleavened matzah.

The Friendship Circle has also set up a website mercerfriends.com/passover where hand-made Shmurah Matzah can be obtained. These and other site features such as a menu planner, house cleaning checklist and Seder "how-to" guide, will help to ease Passover preparations, while the site's fun and educational activities such as the interactive seder plate keep the kids busy.