My first Passover

Monday night was the traditional Passover dinner, called the Seder. Amit's family gathered at his parent's place, where we had toasts for the holidays and exchanged some small gifts - mainly books and clothes.

Amit's dad and nephew reading the Haggadah

Before the meal we started reading the Haggadah, which is the book about the exodus from Egypt, and the Jewish people's freedom from slavery. It talks about Moses, the ten plagues on the people of Egypt sent by God so the Pharaoh would let the Jewish slaves leave Egypt, etc. It's a good story, and the reading of the Haggadah is punctuated by traditional songs. The songs were fun, and I could sing along as they were quite repetitive.

Singing the pesach songs, complete with actions

The food you eat on Passover (Pesach) is very traditional, and you eat different things to represent different aspects of the Jewish people under slavery in Egypt and how they were freed. We ate eggs in salt water, Gefilte fish (eww), matzoh (unleavened bread), chicken soup with Matzoh balls (yum!), and lots of other delicious food... so much food yet again, and our fridge is now full of leftovers from Amit's mum!

You can read more about the Seder meal here.

 

 Amit and me reading the Haggadah

Purim = randomly dressed up people in Israel

Purim is a Jewish festival about some time in history when an evil guy called Haman tried to kill the jews in the ancient Persian empire, a few hundred years BC. A few people, including Queen Esther (secretly Jewish), managed to foil the plot with the use of disguises and people hiding things. So during Purim everyone dresses up in all sorts of disguises and costumes, kind of like Halloween.

During the week leading up to Purim I'd be walking through Tel Aviv and amongst the street filled with normal looking people there would be a guy dressed up as a leprechaun. In the cafes and restaurants the staff would be dressed up as fairies or other random things.

The dressed up waitress, and my coffee served with Haman's ear - From Tel Aviv friends and scenes

Also on Purim you are supposed to eat a feast and drink tonnes of alcohol. Sounds good to me. Normally Amit and his friends would go to a huge street party in Florentin, a cool suburb of Tel Aviv. But it was raining so we were lame and didn't go out.

However, we did have a big feast at Amit's parents place, which was amazing! And we ate Haman's ears (because he's the bad guy, we eat his ears every Purim). Amit's nephews were dressed up for Purim too, super cute.

The feast at Amit's parent's place - From Tel Aviv friends and scenes