Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

More Israeli Employers Forgo Gifts at Passover and Rosh Hashanah

Bah, humbug! Ebenezer Scrooge seems to have come to Israel this Passover.

The big talking point among Israelis during this time of year is what their company gave them. Employers are expected by convention to give employees a gift twice a year, at Passover and at Rosh Hashanah. It’s a longstanding tradition that dates from the days when the socialist-Zionists who founded the state made it a bastion of workers’ rights.

But a survey commissioned by the Israeli Management Center (results not online) indicates that this year, one in five companies is defying expectations and giving nothing. Those who have given gifts spent an average of 355 shekels ($100), which is slightly down on previous years.

In other Passover-related news, it seems the festival is bringing a rare bout of inter-religious tolerance to the Galilee. Arab and Jewish leaders have been in conversation about the sale of pita, a traditional Arab business. Druze government minister Ayoub Kara declared that “if people’s livelihood depends on their selling hametz, we’ll make sure they do so far away from people who would be offended by its sale, and make sure to keep away from the Kinneret and the beaches,” according to this report in the Jerusalem Post.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.