That's because this year at Passover, in several Chicago households, families will be remembering the heroes of the past who stepped forward to lead Jews out of bondage and into freedom. Moses. Esther. Shifra and Puah. Irene Opdyke. Irena Sendler ...

No, Opdyke and Sendler aren't biblical heroines. Instead, they're among thousands of Righteous Gentiles -- non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, often at great risk to their own and their families' lives.

The celebration of these heroic rescuers is part of a bold project created by two Chicagoans and is being launched -- exclusively in Chicago -- for the first time this year.

The Passover Project has a twofold purpose, explains Howard Stolar, a Chicago restaurant owner who, along with clinical psychologist Dr. Jill R. Gardner, formulated the program and is helping to set it in motion. It is designed both to raise Jewish awareness of the role of the Christian rescuers and to raise funds to support those among the Righteous who are living in poverty in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The money will be used to buy much-needed food and medicine for many of them.

Stolar and Gardner are launching the program under the auspices of the Chicago Friends of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. They're sending out letters to 175 Chicago-area rabbis and 65 religious school directors, signed by Rabbi Harold Schulweis, an Encino, Calif. spiritual leader who founded the JFR in 1986. Along with the letters is a Hagaddah supplement created by Stolar and Gardner, with help from the organization's leadership. In the letter they ask the Jewish leaders to distribute the supplement to their congregants, who are urged, in turn, to make it part of their seder ritual.

The brief supplement describes some of the brave deeds of Righteous Gentiles and tells in detail the story of one of them, Irena Sendler, who saved hundreds of Jewish children by leading them out of the Warsaw Ghetto.

And it asks those gathered around the seder table to "honor these Christian rescuers by dedicating ourselves to assisting those among them who need our help."

Gardner says that the message is simple: "These people risked everything, during terrible times, to save Jewish lives. The educational mission is to tell this particular part of the Holocaust story to future generations, to talk about the importance of moral courage in the face of oppression and evil."

The second part of the mission involves not education, but hard cash. Many of the rescuers, all aged now, are living in poverty in small villages in Europe, where, like millions of other elderly people, they have seen inflation and economic turmoil eat away at pensions and savings accounts that were meager to begin with. The Foundation helps to support some 1,500 of them, but there is still a waiting list of more than 30 people.

It costs about $1,000 a year for the Foundation to add a rescuer to its rolls, Gardner says.

She hopes that those who decide to use the Hagaddah supplement in their Seder will "adopt a rescuer, perhaps joining with several other families." Since the story of the Righteous Gentiles involves non-Jews helping to rescue Jews, Gardner sees it as a perfect text for an interfaith seder or a seder at which there are interfaith couples.

Stolar, who at 34 had no first-hand knowledge of the Holocaust, sees yet another dimension to the project: discovering why people of great moral courage acted as they did.

"These rescuers don't consider themselves heroes," he says. "Many of them say it was inevitable. 'Of course I did this!' Most of my friends say, I can't imagine putting myself at such personal risk. What made these people different?"

It's important for children to hear these stories, he adds. "They have cartoon heroes--well, here are the real ones. These stories are very compelling for school kids--to find out that just fifty years ago these people saved strangers from evil." He has become so involved in the project that last year he, his wife and his parents went on a mission to Denmark, where they met and talked with rescuers and members of the Danish Resistance."

"When you meet these people, it tugs at your heartstrings," Stolar says. "You have to wonder, what makes this country, these people different? We really haven't heard a meaningful answer."

But they will be asking the question -- and hoping that many other Chicagoans ask it along with them -- when they read from the Hagaddah supplement at their seder. They will read, "As we tell of Moses leading our people to freedom, we will also tell of contemporary heroes and how they led Jews to freedom less than 60 years ago. Tonight we tell the story of Irena Sendler...."