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Published: April 19th 2010
In Israel, one of the biggest jewish holidays is celebrated at the same time that most of Europe is celebrating Easter. The holiday is Pessach or Passover and yet again it is celebrated with lots of food and big familydinners. This was my first time celebrating Pessach and I was really excited about it. Me and the family were gonna go to family friendses house and throw a big dinner party.
So Pessach celebrates the 40 years of wandering in the dessert from Egypt to the holy land. Pessach lasts for 8 days. And this is a small fact that i learned during Pessach, it is impossible to buy bread for 8 days. During Pessach people eat Matze, which is a kind of cracker-bread looking thing that symbolises the food the jews ate during their journey in the dessert. It is made of wheat and water and it is not allowed to rise. Also most pubs don't sell beer during Pessach. If you can't live without bread it is offcourse possible to go to a nearby arab-village and buy some there.
Now the Pessach dinner is very special, not like other holidaydinners. In Pessach you read the story of
the Exodus and about the 10 plagues that God sent on Egypt and the poeple. It is a very long story, if you read the entire story and do the Seder Pessach appropriately it will take you about 2-2.5 hours before you can start eating. During the storyreading though there are some parts where you have to drink or eat something that symbolises something special. But it isn't really food you enjoy when you are starving and waiting for the big roast that is standing in the oven. Examples are a piece of lettuce, a hard boiled egg, something extremely bitter and i had to dip something in salt water aswell, but I dont remember what it was anymore (I think it might have been the boiled egg).
In Norway some people put porridge on the doorsteps for Santa, in America they put milk and cookies, in Holland they put a carrot and a bowl of water for the horse of Saint Nicholas and in Israel, during Pessach they poor a glas of wine for Elijah. (Sadly I dont really know who he is, why wine and what he has to do with the Exodus). I learned aswell that
some people put an extra plate on the table for Gilad Shalit, who is the israeli soldier that has been held captive by Hamas in Gaza for 5 years.
I hope my photos will give you a feeling of how the holiday is celebrated.
Oh and you might be wondering why it is called Passover?
It is called so because one of the ten plagues was that every first born son in every family would die. The jews were instructed to put the blood of a lamb on the doorpost making "death" pass by their house. And this is where Passover comes from.
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chicida
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pessach
har hört at "päske" äg ska komma fra ordet "pessach", og at det äg har näge med "nowrooz" ä gjör, som e det persiske nyttäret som blir feira fra 21 mars og 15(?) dager itte det. Me feria det her i wien, dä har ein et bord med 7 s-er, altsä 7 ting som begynne pä bokstaven "shin" pä persisk, d e bl.a fisk, linser osv.