Shmura matzo is a special kind of matzo that meets a higher standard of kosher for Passover rules. The flour used in shmura matzo is supervised from the field to the factory to ensure that it does not come in contact with water that could begin the leavening process. Grains that have come in contact…
Over the course of the Seder night, we drink four cups of wine in a ritual modeled after a Greek symposium. The four cups are meant to mirror the four phrases used in the Bible to describe God taking the Jews out of slavery. There has been a debate by the rabbis of the Talmud…
When the Jews left Egypt and were liberated from slavery, they were in such a hurry that they couldn’t wait for their dough to rise before baking. To commemorate the Jews’ haste in leaving Egypt, we do not eat hametz, or any leavened grain products, for the duration of the Passover holiday. Matzo is made…
Passover is a Jewish holiday celebrated in the spring, usually in April. It celebrates the story of the Exodus, in which Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. Throughout the eight-day holiday, eating hametz, leavened grain products, is not allowed. Jews are commanded to eat matzo, an unleavened bread resembling a water cracker,…
If you’ve never seen the “Rugrats” Passover episode, you might be wondering why this holiday is even called Passover, so here’s the backstory. The Bible tells us that when Moses told Pharaoh to “let his people go” and Pharaoh refused, God unleashed a series of 10 plagues to convince the Egyptians to give up their…
As a Hungarian political leader in 2007, Sebastian Gorka, President Trump’s chief counter-terrorism adviser, publicly supported a violent racist and anti-Semitic paramilitary militia that was later banned as a threat to minorities by multiple court rulings. In a video obtained by the Forward of an August 2007 television appearance by Gorka, the future White House…
In March, Florida televangelist Paula White gave her followers a special holiday message. Not for Easter, which falls in mid-April, but for the Jewish holiday of Passover. “We are entering into one of the most supranational and miraculous seasons,” White, who is also a spiritual adviser to President Trump, said in a special video. “The…
Sad news everybody: Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein isn’t planning to run for president of the United States in 2020. You’d think if anybody had the power to make America great again, it would be the man who broke the two longest-lasting curses in baseball and maybe in all of professional sports; the man who…
He is a soft-spoken moderate who has emerged as the unlikely face of resistance to President Trump — and he could become a bona fide threat to The Donald’s presidency as the probe into Russia’s interference in the election explodes. California’s Adam Schiff is meticulous and detail-oriented. He’s not the type of firebrand partisan attack dog…
Dear Dr. Gorka, I was relieved to see you “liked” several recent tweets aimed at me, even though they were hostile and one wrongly implied that the Forward was taking money for the stories we have reported on you. I was beginning to worry that you hadn’t seen our reporting . As you know, on…
This week in Chicago, like Jews everywhere, you’ll be stocking up on your Passover supplies. It’s not quite time to panic over seder preparations yet, so here’s a list of a few things that are going on, if you’re not tempted by the smell of bacon that will be emanating from the University of Illinois-Chicago…
