I wrote this poem/blessing trying to understand Passover in this time of genocide. After a recent online event where I read it, several people contacted me to ask for a copy to read at their family or Community Seder. I wanted to offer it to anyone who finds it meaningful for their Seder this year (as long as it’s not for commercial use).
See below for some liberatory Hagaddah resources. Poem below, or click here for PDF.
Free Palestine.
Blessing for the Matzah
[One speaker reads, with the rest of the group joining in on the bold text]
We realize again in each generation
that we did not truly understand what it meant,
the bread of affliction.
From long tables of borderless plenty,
our beautiful futures look back in sorrow
for they have reached that part of the story.
We must tell it as if we were there.
We were there.
We watched on our phones
as parents ground animal feed and baked it into hard loaves.
We saw the blood-soaked sacks of flour
in the streets.
Matzah reaches back into story
and forward into prayer.
Flour, calories, safe water,
aid trucks, streets without snipers—
not enough but may this be
a bridge of survival,
may every living person in Gaza
make it through
to a Free Palestine
alive.
May all who are hungry in every land
have enough today to arrive
at tomorrow and next week
and to arrive
alive
at the feast of freedom.
May we be the ancestors
of a better story,
Amen.
Liberation-oriented Haggadah resources
In “Hearkening to the Voice of Gaza: Seder Readings for Passover 5784” from Chicago Tzedek, we are reminded that “As we lift up the matzah this Passover, the words of Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha remind us that for Gazans experiencing forced starvation, lechem oni – the bread of affliction – is more than merely symbolic.”
“Three days later, on social media, (my brother) Hamza posted a photograph of what he was eating that day: a ragged brown morsel, seared black on one side and flecked with grainy bits. “This is the wondrous thing we call ‘bread’—a mixture of rabbit, donkey, and pigeon feed,” Hamza wrote in Arabic. “There is nothing good about it except that it fills our bellies. It is impossible to stuff it with other foods, or even break it except by biting down hard with one’s teeth…”“
There are many great liberation-oriented Haggadah resources, including many new ones this year like the one quoted above. The most expansive list I’ve found is here (8 pages of links!):
Justice-y Passover Seder Haggadot/Supplements ✊🌾🐸🧿
A few liberation Haggadah resources that are new this year:
[NEW] From the River to the Sea: A Passover Haggadah by Families for Ceasefire Philly 5784/2024 (great for children and families)
[NEW] Harkening to the Voices of Gaza from Chicago Tzedek (a Haggadah supplement with readings from Gazan writers that fit each section of the Seder)
[NEW] Pillar of Fire Haggadah: A collective queer anti-zionist haggadah
[NEW] JVP (Jewish Voice for Peach) Passover 5784/2024: Exodus from Zionism
[NEW] If Not Now Freedom for All Haggadah
Hightlights from recent years (these, plus some of the new ones above, are some of the sources I used when piecing together a Haggadah for my own use):
Jewish Voice For Peace Haggadah 5777
Kavod Jews of Color, Indigenous Jews, Mizrahim, & Sephardim Caucus Haggadah 2019
JUFJ Jews United for Justice Social Justice Seder 2020
Love and Justice in the Time of War Haggadah/Zine by Micah Bazant and Dara Silverman’s
About the Spoon on the Seder Plate:
- Disability during a pandemic: Why you should put a spoon on your seder plate this year By Rabbi Elliot Kukla
- Narrow Bridge Candles Haggadah insert about disability Justice
Pesach Resource Library collected by Cleveland Jewish Collective
Interesting historical Haggadot:
The Israeli Black Panthers Haggadah 50th Anniversary Edition
Hagode shel Peysekh (with a Socialist Twist): A partial translation of a 1919 Socialist Haggadah published by the Galician Bund
But seriously, there are so so SO many more. Check out the list above. And we’ll keep writing them every year until everyone is free.
Anna Swanson 