World’s Biggest Seder Will Go On in Nepal Despite Diplomat Strike

Annual Rite: Jewish women light candles at last year?s Passover seder in Kathmandu, Nepal. Image by getty images

By JTA March 26, 2014

The massive Passover seder held annually in Kathmandu will go on this year despite a strike by Israel’s Foreign Ministry, the head of the Chabad center asserted.

Rabbi Chezky Lifshitz, the Chabad emissary to Nepal, told the Chabad.org website that despite news reports to the contrary, the seders will take place in Kathmandu and throughout Nepal.

The mass Passover seder in Kathmandu has become a tradition among the Israeli backpackers who visit the country, drawing around 1,500 participants each year, according to Chabad.org. There is also a smaller English-language seder for European and American visitors.

Due to the Foreign Ministry strike, however, Chabad is not able to receive the large shipment of supplies, including matzah, wine and other kosher foods, currently being held in an Indian port, since the ministry handles the receiving and delivering of the containers.

“We are currently working through many options,” Lifshitz told Chabad.org from Nepal. “We are looking into baking matzah here or maybe sending supplies with a lot of people. I’m sure the seder will take place.”

“There have been many times when we have had problems arranging the sedarim,” Lifshitz said. “But in the end, we have always had success, so we are not worried.”

The general strike, which was called on Sunday, has shut down Israel’s Employees of the Foreign Ministry in Israel declared a general strike, shutting down the country’s 103 embassies, consulates and diplomatic missions around the world. The strike is open-ended and comes after two weeks of labor sanctions and seven months of mediation.

Foreign Ministry employees are protesting, among other things, salary cuts, low pensions and poor compensation packages offered to spouses of overseas diplomats. They have been trying for more than a year to improve their working conditions.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO