This is the Forward’s coverage of the Jewish holiday of Passover, also called Pesach.
Passover
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Food A South African Seder, Inspired by Lithuanian Roots
In the 1920s, when Esther Perkel was a young girl living in South Africa, she and her family traveled by tram and rickshaw to the Newtown Market in Johannesburg to buy bushels of fresh grapes grown in the vineyards around the Cape of Good Hope. Her family carted the grapes home shortly after Purim, where…
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Opinion Welcome, Kitniyot
A few weeks before the first Seder, the Orthodox Union announced a new symbol of authorization for Passover products: OU Kitniyot. This has more than culinary significance. It can be seen as a welcome step in diminishing the divisions within the Jewish people. Kitniyot are one of the main dividing lines. Sephardic Jews will consume…
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Opinion An Orange on Plate for Women — And Spit Out Seeds of Hate
Passover was high drama in my childhood. Preparations began weeks in advance, with meticulous scrubbing, shopping and organizing. Strong emotions came out in the days before the holiday, when every crumb of hametz had to be removed, and we had to tread very carefully. One mistake could bring calamity. When we finally sat down for…
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Food Facing a Food Crisis: The Ingenuity of Haitian Farmers
With Passover around the corner, many of us are poised to recite the words, “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” But when nearly 1 billion people around the world are hungry or malnourished, these words become acutely daunting—particularly for communities recovering from disasters. More than three years after a major earthquake ravaged Haiti,…
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Food From Coast to Coast, the Best Seders
Not up for cooking for the Seders this year? Not a problem. Restaurants around North America are offering seats at the Seder table for those who are hungry for updated Jewish fare like matzo balls in a lemongrass broth, tropical haroset and Turkish flourless chocolate cake. At some, a Seder service will be led, while…
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Opinion Put Olive on Seder Plate for Palestinians and All Oppressed Peoples
Jews who want to challenge the community use foods as a way symbolizing those challenges on the most heartfelt of Jewish rituals: the Passover seder. Each day, we will examine a different food and what it means. Passover has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. Even as a child, I remember being slightly embarrassed that…
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Opinion Slice of Bread for LGBT Jews and All the Excluded
Jews who want to challenge the community use foods as a way symbolizing those challenges on the most heartfelt of Jewish rituals: the Passover seder. Each day, we will examine a different food and what it means. In 1997 I wrote a book with the title “Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and…
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Opinion The Work of Passover
I have long believed that Judaism is a system of vocational education — that is, of education for a vocation, a calling (from the Latin vocare, to call). I needn’t elaborate here on the substance and texture of that calling. I note only that such questions as ayeka (“Where are you?”) and such injunctions as…
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