The Progressive's Passover

It's the time of year when Jews celebrate one of their oldest festivals, Pesach or Passover. Pesach commemorates the Jews' escape from bondage in Egypt and their flight to freedom in the land of Israel. As a nominal Jew, I have observed Pesach with my family for 35 years. Since my father's death and my brother's estrangment from Judaism, and despite my own fall from belief in organized religion, I have been called upon to serve as the leader at my family's Seder, the traditional festive meal of Pesach.

The rituals of the Seder are set forth in the Haggadah, which tells the story of Pesach and the exodus from Egypt through stories, songs, and readings from the five books of Moses and various learned men from the centuries of Jewish knowledge. My family has, as long as I can remember, used a set of Haggadot published by Manischewitz, makers of many Jewish foods and other products. These books are showing their age lately, but I still like them because the dog-eared copy from which I lead contains my father's copious marginalia to help me know which parts to skip over, which parts to read aloud, and which parts to ask guests to read around the table.

This year, however, my mother borrowed a set of Haggadot from a friend of hers. This set was simpler, explained it better for the non-Jews at our table, and would make for a more enjoyable experience for all concerned.

Except for one thing: even more than the older set, this text makes clear the hypocrisy of Zionism.

Even as we sat at our comfortable table, stuffing ourselves with matzoh ball soup and gefilte fish, a people continue their struggle to regain their homeland. While we read in the Haggadah about a 40-year journey through the desert, from oppression to the land of milk and honey, we ignore another displaced people who want nothing more than to return to their homes in Israel, née Palestine. As we self-righteously tell the story of Moses' exhortations to Pharoah to "let my people go," we in the United States continue to fund the murder of Palestinian protesters to the tune of over US$5.5 billion per year. As long as the Israeli government kills rock-throwing Palestinians with helicopters and tanks, I can not in good conscience tell such a one-sided story.

And the one-sidedness of the killings is astounding: while Palestinian civilians and security forces have killed 303 Israeli civilans between December 1987, the beginning of the Intifadeh, and the end of February 2001, Israeli security forces alone have killed 1,661 Palestinian civilians -- 346 of them under the age of 17.

The Jews have a lot to be thankful for on Pesach, to be sure: that the Jews were freed from slavery in Egypt, that the Jewish people survived the Holocaust, that there is a Jewish homeland at all. But there are still oppressed, exiled, and enslaved people throughout the world, and some of them are oppressed as a direct result of the establishment of Israel. What irony, what chutzpah to preach freedom in the midst of such turmoil!

I'm working on a more progressive Haggadah for next year, one that I won't be ashamed to read from. I plan to cite historical and modern struggles for freedom -- and there are many to choose from, historical and modern. For example, besides the politically inflammatory Intifadeh, there are the Indian struggle for independence from British rule; the Chinese occupation of Tibet and subsequent Tibetan exile; the East Timorese vote for independence from Indonesia; and our own issues with civil rights and slavery reparations.

Of course, there's a lot of good in the traditional Haggadah; but a dose of reality is sorely needed. Citations and reading suggestions from our readers would be most welcome.