Hannah Jones/Winonan

Last Sunday, a Winona State University junior and psychology major Cara Luebke was in the Tau kitchen, watching over 60 pounds of beef brisket, 20 pounds of potatoes, 20 pounds of apples, five pounds of chopped liver and about 15 pounds of matzo.

“We are in such good shape,” she said looking around bemusedly, almost as if she herself couldn’t believe that everything was coming together on time. With the ovens, fridges, and shelves all packed with the fragrant piles of food, Luebke led the Jews on Campus club, of which she is currently president, in putting on a Seder for the Passover season on West campus.

Luebke said used to hate the season of Passover. Even though she loved the celebration of the Seder and the dining, singing, and excitement that came with it, keeping the Passover for seven more days after the Seder—cutting any leavened products out of her diet—was a struggle.

So, two years ago, in her freshman year at Winona State, she never expected that she’d be the one to put on a Passover feast for her classmates at the Alumni House.

Luebke said that after she came to school, she began to feel nostalgic for the religious environment back home.

“My first year here, I started missing Judaism and Jewish traditions,” she said, a little preoccupied with putting together a handout of the traditional haggadah to put on each table. “It’s so much more accessible at home—you can go to the synagogue whenever you want.”

A complication with her printer connection momentarily stole her attention. “Sorry if I’m a little distracted,” she said. The print job went through, and soon each table received a guide to that afternoon’s ceremonial rites, but only after at least four people ducked out of the kitchen to ask Luebke questions about the food preparation: when to fill the water pitchers, how best to plate the brisket, etc. “Now,” she said, after the last question had been answered, “where was I?”

The town of Winona is without a synagogue. When she’s at school, Cara and the rest of Winona State’s practicing Jews have to go all the way to Rochester or La Crosse to go to a formal service, and the planning and effort required to go can sometimes be difficult to negotiate. So, for these important days on the Jewish calendar, Jews on Campus brings the tradition and the celebration to students here in Winona.

Adam Meister also feels the strain of distance between himself and his home and family during the high holidays. “I also celebrate here,” he said, stirring up a tub of thick, creamy batter. “It’s not the same, but it’s still good.”

The current treasurer of Jews on Campus, Meister arranged all of the funding for this year’s Seder, and also contributed a few of his own family’s Passover traditions. While he stirred up the matzo, egg and water mixture for a Passover staple in his household, farfel pancakes, his mother stood behind him and quickly fried up the batter in a hefty skillet of sizzling oil. She and Luebke’s family all came to help with the Seder preparations.

The food they made that afternoon was expected to feed over 75 hungry guests.

Winona’s Jewish population is relatively small. The vast majority of the guests at the Seder, consequently, were not Jewish. Still, as the hour of the feast neared, tables in the conference room began to fill up with eager guests, paging through their haggadah handouts and eagerly awaiting the feast to follow the ceremony. When Luebke and the rest of Jews on Campus led the guests through each prayer, song and ritual, from the Passover story to the giving of a cup of wine to the prophet Elijah, they prayed, sang and smiled with them. Even in Luebke’s past Seders, guests of all faiths and creeds have been in ample supply.

This began largely as a result of the many friendships Luebke had forged with her classmates. Luebke’s mother, Cheryl, still remembered the call she got the first year her daughter put on this program.

“She said, ‘Hey, Mom, guess what—I’m going to have a Seder on campus, and I kind of accidentally invited 100 people,’” she said, laughing.

Juniors Olivia Wulf and Katie Logan have been coming to Luebke’s Seders since her very first one intheir freshman year. Wulf and Logan commented on the organized setup and the good turnout this year.

“It’s fun to watch it grow and develop and blossom,” said Wulf.

The food came out in droves. Plate after plate of steaming, hearty dishes got passed among the guests, who ate to the bursting point. The Seder ended with everyone laughingly attempting to sing a fast-paced, tongue-twisting Hebrew song, “Chad Gadya,” together.

“For me,” Luebke said, “it’s about joining together. Our similarities are so much more important than our differences.”

After the Seder, Luebke and her friends stayed behind to begin on what promised to be a massive cleaning job—with at least 15 pounds of leftover brisket to boot.

Contact Hannah at [email protected]