For Jews and Israelis gathering at Passover seders this week, one line in the Haggadah, the seder liturgy, has a chilling resonance.
“In every generation someone rises up to destroy us,” it reads. As Jews the world over gathered in prayer Wednesday night to commemorate their biblical Exodus from slavery in Egypt, their thoughts turned again to Israel’s agony.
Doubtless, most had heard about the Palestinian suicide bomber who walked into a hotel in the town of Netanya Wednesday evening and blew himself up as guests were sitting down to their traditional seder in a dining hall. At least 19 Israelis were killed and more than 120 injured.
After 18 months of bloody conflict with Palestinians, including dozens of suicide bombings, yet another one was hardly surprising. But the extent of the death toll, the timing and even the venue–the heart of Israel on the Mediterranean coast–was shocking. It came as Israelis were celebrating the start of the week-long Passover holiday, when families gather over a special meal to discuss their history, honor it and teach it to their children.
Imagine the vulnerability Israelis must feel. This holiday is a ritual in which children are encouraged to ask questions about the flight to freedom of the ancient Israelites. In the eyes of modern Israelis, the persecution goes on and on.
At the seder, Jews drink sweet red wine and eat traditional matzo, a specially prepared unleavened bread. They read an account of the Exodus from the Hagaddah. There are many different versions of the book, from Orthodox to Yemenite, New Age to feminist or lesbian. But they all tell basically the same story of the Jews’ deliverance from enemies who had subjugated them.
The name Passover, Pesach in Hebrew, comes from the traditional story that first-born Jewish males were spared when Egyptian first-born males were killed in the 10th plague that Jews believe God imposed on Egypt for enslaving them.
The holiday has resonance for Christians as well, because Jesus was a Jew and the Last Supper a seder, which is why Easter falls so close.
Fast forward to 2002. The Jewish state is in its 54th year. Israelis long for peace and security. Yet Israel is still not accepted in the neighborhood. After a half-dozen wars since its independence in 1948, Israelis are combatting the latest bloody uprising by Palestinians seeking to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians want to establish an independent state alongside Israel with East Jerusalem its capital. Peace is elusive.
As Israelis gathered for their seders, leaders of Arab nations gathered to the north, in Beirut, for a summit at which Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah introduced his U.S.-supported peace plan to the meeting of the Arab League.
The Bush administration has praised the land-for-peace plan, which Arab states were debating Wednesday at the summit. It is an opportunity for peace.
Yet given events like the Netanya bombing, many Israelis wonder why they should give any more land for peace. On Passover, there is no deliverance, no peace, only more slaughter.
