LOS ANGELES – Ruth’s day is coming. Not the Ruth with all the home runs. The other Ruth, the biblical one who hit an eternal shot for Jews by Choice.

We read her book and story on Shavuot. Her words of commitment spoken to her mother-in-law, Naomi, travel over time to us on the holiday: “Wherever you go I will go, and wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God.”

As more organizations like the Jewish Outreach Institute, Interfaithfamily.com and Jewsbychoice.org, as well as Jews by Choice themselves, take note of the connection between Shavuot and Ruth, it’s a good time for a Ruth Check — a Shavuot look into how we are getting along with the converts in our lives.

Joan Nathan says she’s always had a particular fascination for French Jews and their food.

For Nathan, author of “Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France” (Knopf, 2010), the love affair with French cuisine started as a teenager when she made her first trip to France in the 1950s.

The prolific cookbook author says the simple pleasure of sampling a slightly melted bar of chocolate sandwiched into a crackly baguette transformed her life.

Of the many fateful decisions my parents made as they tried to keep one step ahead of the Nazis, none was more fraught with anxiety and fear than their decision to give away their 1-year-old son.

It was perhaps the most unnatural decision a parent could make. They entrusted my life to my Polish Catholic nursemaid, a woman they had known for only a short time. They did so on a leap of faith, a belief that I would have a better chance of surviving outside of the burgeoning Jewish ghetto of Vilna under the protection and care of the devout Catholic woman who loved me as her own.

I am named after my paternal grandfather, Yekusiel ben Naftali, Alav Hashalom. Because of the inexplicable cruelty of the Nazis, we were never to meet. Now that I have come to experience the unique joys of being a grandfather, I often think about him and about the relationship we might have had.

My father, an only child, lived with my grandparents, Karl and Bertha Breslau, in Frankfurt. My grandfather was a retired chief shochet of the Frankfurt Jewish community and received a pension from it. In November of 1938, my grandparents went on a brief vacation. Unfortunately, they were attacked and beaten on Kristallnacht and returned to Frankfurt. My grandmother then suffered a stroke. She died in June of 1939 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Frankfurt.

Following are excerpts from “The Deportation of November 22, 1941” by Monica Kingreen and published in her 1999 book, “Nach der Kristallnacht. Judisches Leben und antijudische Politik in Frankfurt in Frankfurt am Main 1938-1945” (“After Kristallnacht. Jewish Life and anti-Jewish Politics in Frankfurt and Frankfurt on the Main 1938-1945”). The translation is by Sid Haarburger.

“The Frankfurt group arrived a few days after those from Berlin and Munich. They walked 6 kilometers (about 3 3/4 miles) along the way from the railroad station through the city along the edge of the Jewish ghetto to Fort IX, which was on a hill on the southeast part of town. The fort was built in the 19th century as part of a military wall to fend off Czarist Russia attacks against Prussia. After World War I, it was rebuilt as jail.

The White House

Washington

My family and I send our warmest wishes to all those celebrating the sacred festival of Passover.

On Monday evening, Jewish families and their friends in America, Israel, and around the world will gather around the Seder table and retell the story of the Exodus, one of the most powerful stories of suffering and redemption in history. The story of Passover — which recalls the passage of the children of Israel from bondage and repression to freedom and liberty — inspires hope that those oppressed and enslaved can become free. The Seder, with its rich traditions and rituals, instructs each generation to remember its past, while appreciating the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails.

Passover, which commemorates the Jewish people’s liberation from slavery, has a political message at its heart. So it’s not surprising that the seder – especially the seder plate — has been pressed into the service of all kinds of freedoms.

The country’s first Freedom Seder, held in a Washington church on the third night of Passover on April 4, 1969, marked the first anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Participants used a haggadah focused on black-Jewish solidarity that was rewritten by the Shalom Center, a Jewish peace group. The 800 guests included blacks and whites, Jews and Christians.

For those still figuring out their Passover menus, these easy recipes are great additions. For more recipes, go to http://www.jstandard.com and visit my Cooking With Beth Blog.

Potato/Zucchini Kugel

2 large potatoes
1 lb. zucchini
1 onion

Grate above ingredients together