President Barack Obama will mark Passover with a White House Seder on Monday, part of a personal tradition he began during his 2008 presidential campaign, a spokesman said. Obama will sit down with family and friends for the dinner celebrating the first night of Passover, when Jews around the world retell the story of liberation…
Ideally, the Jewish holidays are supposed to be about deep religious symbolism, usually something to do with surviving and being saved by God. But in reality, each holiday comes with its own baggage and modern-day choices. Pesach should be about freedom from slavery, but in truth it’s often about cleaning and cooking, unless your family…
How many Jews does it take to wish you Happy Passover? Apparently, at least three. Watch Peter Yarrow from Peter, Paul and Mary team up with Knesset member Stav Shaffir to wish you a Chag Sameach with Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ In the Wind.”
Sesame Street, Macklemore, animation, leopard-print coats… Everything is better with a Passover theme. To fill the gaps between the Four Questions and the Ten Plagues, here are some Passover videos that’ll have your whole family talking – or not. 1. Passover Story: The Animated Kids Version Move over, Rugrats! The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family…
Tradition! No holiday says it louder than Passover. But what do you do when you don’t have the traditional household and extended family to celebrate with? That was the challenge my friend Karen Fink and I faced in 1996. Her Reform parents had been the family seder-makers, but they were getting tired. She leaned toward…
On Monday night, the first night of Pesach, many of us will sit around a table telling stories. The primary narrative of the evening — the exodus of the Jews from Egypt — is pretty much the same at every gathering, as is the basic framework of the haggadah from which we’ll tell the story….
Editor’s note: Lou Reed would have turned 79 on March 2, 2021. In honor of him and the upcoming holiday we have republished this piece, which first appeared in March of 2013, about the singer-songwriter’s historic “Downtown Seder.” Lou Reed is standing in front of a room full of Jews on Varick Street on a…
Just before the doors of the Old Family Dining Room swing open to welcome Elijah to the White House Seder, Dr. Eric Whitaker, a friend of President Obama, reads aloud the Emancipation Proclamation. Last week, as I researched the Obama Seder (the only Seder hosted by a sitting President), I was struck by several things,…
