Kosher For Passover

The rabbi's silhouette stood in stark contrast to the light-browns of the parched African veldt.

The old African woman had been insistent. "Please meet me here tomorrow, I have something very important to show you."

Soon enough, an ancient white Combi pulled up to the spot where the rabbi had been standing. "Please come, it is about a twenty five minute drive from here." Acting on instinct, the rabbi decided to go with her.

The car clattered down the rutted road, the blazing sun glinting off the chrome of its 1930's frame. Just beyond the environs of the city, they reached the cemetery.

"Here is my husband's gravesite" whispered the woman as tears coursed down her face. "He would have liked a rabbi to have been here."

The rabbi stared at the grave, noticing the most unusual headstone. Engraved on the stone, above the man's name, were the Hebrew words kasher l'pesach "Kosher for Passover."

What made it even more unusual was the fact that the words were inscribed upside-down.

The woman explained that her husband had arrived in Namibia as a young lad; he had worked hard, married, lived an entire lifetime with her and never divulged anything about his upbringing in London as a child.

He had never mentioned the fact that he was Jewish, nor had he in fact mentioned anything about religion at all.

On his death-bed, he summoned all his remaining energy and told her that he was Jewish and would like the world to remember that he was.

He had saved the one thing that crossed his path and signified some sort of Jewish identity for him.

It was a box of Kosher-for-Passover matzos...

"Please inscribe this on my headstone" he stated, and those were his actual last words.