Passover in Jerusalem

Passover began on the evening of Monday the 18th of April this year, and for our Seder dinner Raz's family made a trip to Jerusalem to spend the evening at his grandmothers home. The coming of Passover is quite similar to the coming of Shabbat, towards evening the city shuts down to prepare for the Seder and the holy day that follows.  

Raz's family arrived throughout the afternoon, we all did our best to help with the preparations whenever we could. I was really looking forward to being a part of this event and ended up enjoying the experience far more than I had even imagined. The feeling of being 'home' was wonderful. I felt the same energy and comfortable acceptance that I feel at my own grandparents homes, and wished I could adequately express my thanks to the family for welcoming me in such a beautiful way. 

Raz's father had been trying to find a Haggadah in English for me for the Seder. The Haggadah is the book that is read from through the Passover meal. It takes you from the initial blessing of the wine, to eating the bitter herbs (or romaine lettuce in our case) etc, all the way through the Exodus story. Reading through the Haggadah takes a couple of hours at least, so having an English translation would have been helpful, but there was none to be found. He did find some literature online for me to read and Raz's sister was so wonderful and sat with me for a good hour going through a Haggadah they had with pictures in it and explaining everything to me. It was so kind of her and extremely helpful to me. 

Alas I didn't take any pictures of the dinner... I didn't want to impose or be rude, but it was really wonderful. Raz's father blessed the wine (we actually used grape juice), we did a ritual washing of our hands, we ate bitter herbs and matzo, all the while reading out loud from the Haggadah. Then the reading of the exodus story and the tale of the four brothers. For this part of the evening we went around the table and everyone took turns reading from their Haggadah. Sadly my Hebrew is still no-existant so the let me pass on reading. The reading was lovely, I think Hebrew is a beautiful language and the flow of story was dappled with songs that everyone would sing only adding to the beauty of the evening. 

Then we ate. And oh what a meal it was!!! Meat and soup and salads, porridge made of matzo, rice and sauces and endless dishes of tastiness.  It was fantastic and I almost burst I ate so much. It was lovely. After the meal we read the rest of the Haggadah and ended the Seder by singing songs for a good 20 minutes. the rest of the evening was spend talking and cleaning, drinking fresh mint tea. The whole evening was such a beautiful experience. 

Many of us spent the night at Raz's grandmothers house, I got to sleep in this lovely little space with a window looking out to the garden and the street, when I woke in the morning I could see all the religious men walking to Synagogue. Raz's mother had cooked Levivot, these delicious deep fried pancakes made with matzo flour, which I did my best to only eat a few of despite their tastiness. 

I also found out how matzo is prepared so it's more versatile than just a giant cracker. Warm water is mixed with a little salt and each cracker has a little water poured over each side and then the crackers are placed inside a plastic bag. The water allows the matzo to soften and become pliable so you can bend and fold it to make a kind of sandwich... or my favorite a chocolate spread fold over. I have to admit, matzo is not my favorite food, but it was really interesting eating it for a whole week and experiencing the remembrance every time we sat down for a meal. 

Raz and I spent the day at the Israel Museum which has a completely impressive collection of ancient artifacts as well as jewish art and artifacts and a wonderful collection of painting and sculpture through the ages. Sadly, no pictures allowed, so I only got a few from the monastery we passed on our way to the museum and sculptures outside. 

little door at the monastery. 

Just in case you were wondering...

We stayed another night in Jerusalem and the next day we went to the Old city. First we walked through a fantastic neighborhood called Yemin Moshe which was part of the first neighborhood built outside the old city walls between 1860 and 1891. It's now an upscale neighborhood that is absolutely beautiful. We thoroughly enjoyed wandering through the streets.

We eventually made it to the Old city where there was a stage set up outside of Jaffa gate where all these boys were singing and dancing. 

The city was beyond crowded. Most streets were packed with people trying to squeeze through the crowd, it was really amazing. We spent the day wandering the markets, we both got some fantastic leather sandals, I tried my hand a haggling and almost got talked into buying a bag that I didn't really want by a fast talking vendor. Raz came to my rescue and reminded me that just because he'd already cut the price in half and wrapped it up and was trying to hand it to me didn't mean I had to take it. I decided haggling is a skill I'll have to work on in the future... 

The Western wall complex was packed. Just the line to get through security was absurd, so we just looked from afar.

There were several booths selling cotton candy. Raz told me that he grew up calling it searot savta which means Grandmas hair, which I think is kind of funny/disgusting. 

It was a fantastic trip to Jerusalem. Due to all the extra travelers for the holiday we ended up getting stuck for an extra hour in traffic on the way home, but we napped and joked around so it wasn't so bad. I'm so glad I extended my return ticket so I could have this experience.