Tagged Passover

Jerusalem’s Old City, virtual reality edition: A game brings quarantined people around the world into the holy neighborhood

A scene from “The Holy City,” an immersive virtual reality experience that takes users into Jerusalem's Old City. (Nimrod Shanit/Blimey)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — This time of year — the convergence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan — is peak tourism time for this city. This year is the first time since 1992 that all three festivals fall in the same month. But traveling as a tourist to Jerusalem right now… Read more »

How Jewish communities are deploying Passover aid amid coronavirus lockdowns

Rabbi Areyah Kaltmann packs boxes of frozen kosher chickens to be distributed to families for Passover. (Courtesy of JewishColumbus)

In the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s Passover will be like no other in living memory. With families kept apart by lockdown orders and millions struggling with uncertain financial futures, the needs are great and the logistics of coordinating Passover aid are daunting. Across America, Jewish federations… Read more »

Meet the challah-tinkering yeast scientist who’s helping pandemic bread bakers get a good rise

Sudeep Agarwala is a yeast scientist and challah enthusiast whose guidance for home bakers has taken off online. (Courtesy of Agarwala)

(JTA) — Few people have any great solutions for this difficult moment in human history, but Sudeep Agarwala is one of them. As a yeast scientist, Agarwala spends much of his time thinking about the single-celled fungi that allow bread to rise. So when he learned that home bakers… Read more »

He wanted to encapsulate Beijing’s Jewish community in a Passover Haggadah. The coronavirus complicated that.

Artist Leon Fenster says this page of his Beijing-themed Haggadah aims to capture the traditional Haggadah’s "curiously non-chronological form of storytelling." (Courtesy of Fenster)

(JTA) — Unlike Shanghai or Hong Kong, which received Jews fleeing from World War II, Beijing does not have a robust Jewish history. In the words of Joshua Kurtzig, former president of the Reform congregation there, the massive Chinese capital is a “very transient city,” especially for Jews — meaning… Read more »

From 1600s Europe to a lesbian feminist seder, these 4 Haggadahs are a trip through Jewish history

A children's Haggadah from 1945 compares draws parallels between the Passover narrative and the Holocaust. (Yeshiva University Museum/Center for Jewish History)

NEW YORK (JTA) — From graphic novel Haggadahs to a Donald Trump-themed one, if you’re looking for a certain kind of guide to the Passover seder, chances are it’s out there. Recent years have seen a proliferation of political, environmental, family-friendly,  or just plain irreverent Haggadahs, but the urge to… Read more »

Children’s program to blend music, mitzvot

Rabbi Israel Becker

A new musical program, Music, Memories, and Mitzvot, will weave song, stories, and learning about Jewish celebrations with the mitzvah of bringing joy to the elderly, says Rabbi Israel Becker of Congregation Chofetz Chayim. The program, for children ages 5-11, includes three Sunday classes in preparation for each of four… Read more »

Kosher supermarkets hate cleaning for Passover as much as you do

An illustrative photo of a shopper at a grocery store picking up a box of matzah. (William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Pomegranate, a gourmet kosher supermarket in Brooklyn, spends $75,000 every year getting its kitchen ready for Passover. Hungarian Kosher Foods, a supermarket in Chicago, starts clearing its aisles for Passover eight weeks ahead of the holiday. The week before Passover, at Zabar’s, a Jewish favorite… Read more »

Why matzah is a non-Jewish staple in the Netherlands

A shopper browses for matzah at the Amsterdam Noord branch of the Jumbo supermarket chain, March 17, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

ENSCHEDE, Netherlands (JTA) — For most matzah bakeries, Passover is their lifeline and only claim to financial viability. After the weeklong holiday, during which Jews are commanded to consume matzah to commemorate their ancestors’ hurried flight out of Egypt, demand for the famously tasteless cracker drops sharply. Except, that is,… Read more »

A tour guide uncovers Passover secrets in the Met Museum’s Egyptian wing

Nachliel Selavan giving a tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (Debra Nussbaum Cohen)

NEW YORK (JTA) — I have roamed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian wing many times, marveling at sarcophagi, statues of Horus and Ra, and portraits of young men on ancient panels who gaze back at visitors, looking shockingly familiar and contemporary. But on a Sunday just before Passover,… Read more »

5 Haggadahs and other Passover supplements to modernize your seder this year

Even an 18th-century Haggadah from Switzerland like the one seen here could benefit from a link to the present. (Godong/UIG via Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Although Jews have celebrated Passover by reading from the Haggadah in one form or another for 2,000 years, Jewish organizations and publishers strive each year to connect the holiday to modern times with fresh Haggadahs as well as supplements. If you’re looking to give your seder a… Read more »

A Spanish university’s first-ever Passover seder is being organized by American students

Fulbright scholars McCall Wells, left, and Danielle Elliott are organizing an interfaith seder at the Universidad Camilo José Sela in Villafranca del Castillo, Spain. (Melissa Marazas)

MADRID (JTA) — Every Passover, Danielle Elliott joins her parents in Chicago. She helps prepare haroset, delights in her mom’s elaborate Passover decorations and enjoys spending the holiday with her family. But this year Elliott will be recounting the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt several thousand miles… Read more »

Recalling lessons of Passover, Israelis pray for their Syrian ‘enemies’

A view of the Suruc refugee camp in Turkey, which houses some 35,000 Syrian refugees. (Carl Court/Getty Images)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – At a Shabbat service in Tel Aviv on Friday evening, congregants recited the mourner’s prayer for those killed in Syria’s civil war. Standing before a mural of the Tree of Life, the rabbi of Beit Daniel, the largest Reform synagogue in Israel, delivered a sermon… Read more »