Arthur Waśków

So many people have written

tributes to Arthur Waskow,

who died yesterday at 92.

(Larry Bush wrote a beautiful

piece on the Alte substack yesterday.)

My small story:

Arthur and I met at his Freedom Seder

in 1969 in Washington, D.C., a Passover

Seder organized by African American

and Jewish activists, tying Jewish liberation

to the Civil Rights struggle.

Like many people in Arthur’s path, we became

lifelong friends. Years later, when visionary leader

Reena Bernards was director of New Jewish Agenda,

and I was at Adama Books, we all worked together

to publish three Freedom Seders, and Arthur wrote

a revised edition. (I still use them today.)

A while later, Arthur called and said he had an idea

(a person of infinite ideas)

to retell the Genesis story for kids. He

called it Before There Was a Before.

(Both books are on my favorite shelf.)

Here is Arthur