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Passover preparations for a Civil War–era Union soldier included importing seven barrels of matzot and collecting weeds to substitute for the symbolic bitterness of horseradish.
The creator of the popular ritual of placing an orange on the Seder plate describes exactly how this innovation arose, its intended significance, and the problematic erasure of its origins.
This Haggadah was commissioned by Nathan ben Isaac Oppenheim of Vienna, a member of a prominent family of Court Jews. Its title page features a miniature of the sacrifice of Isaac being prevented by…
On the eve of the fourteenth [of Nisan], after reciting the evening prayer, you must light a wax candle and recite the blessing on removing your leavened foods. Then you must search in your room and…
Question 5: What blessing should one recite over coffee and tea, and is there any problem with drinking them on Passover?
Response: I will answer the questions in order. Regarding the blessing, it has…
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you. Speak to the…
“It was my fault, Sammy. I aggravate you when you’re tired,” she said, sitting up and drawing his head to her. “I shouldn’t even have mentioned Ev. We ought to go to your family this year. It’s only…
On the nights before Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, my mother would send me to the butcher with some birds to be slaughtered according to ritual so the meat would be kosher—that is, clean…
A medieval rabbi barely escapes from a blood libel accusation at his own Seder table in this prescient nineteenth-century story by the famous German Romantic poet Heinrich Heine.
These woodcuts appeared in Sefer minhagim (Book of Customs), a very popular Yiddish book published by Giovanni di Gara, the leading publisher of Jewish books in Venice from 1564 to 1609. It was the…
