Going Home (?) For Pesach

Memories from Passovers past bubble up as I contemplate the upcoming holiday. My parents’ seders were studies in contrast and tension, with my traditional mother taking pains over every detail and my non-believing father caring mostly about getting done quickly so we could eat. They have both passed away. My in-laws, also gone from this earth, favored less than more like Dad.  

My wife and I are different. We both enjoy festive sederim that take their time with songs, story, and discussion. This year, our Passover will stand out from all of those that have come before. Five years since becoming Israeli citizens, we have been invited to celebrate the holiday in the US. I have mixed feelings about doing so.

Proud to be an American, I am sorry to say that my birthplace does not strike me as welcoming as it did when I left. I’m thinking about a recent poll released by The Economist and YouGov that found American democrats now sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis in the Israel-Hamas War. I’m also thinking about an American Jewish Committee report that found for the first time in history most American Jews (56%) are changing their behavior out of fear of antisemitism.

Then there is the phenomenon of President Donald Trump who has made America into an angrier, more chaotic place. His clamping down on free speech, defiance of judges, vilification of diversity, equity and inclusion, dismissal of environmentalism, defunding of universities and laboratories, tariff mania, cuts to foreign aid, and dismissal of the European Union have all make my blood boil. His bromance with Vladimir Putin, which prompted him to label Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator who incited the war with Russia, has made me feel sad and ashamed of my beloved America. 

Talk about standing between a rock and a hard place. Israel’s current situation may be miserable, but at least the US looks like it’s headed down the toilet.

As for our invitation to celebrate Passover in America, it came from our beloved daughter. The Passover invitation we received in part read: “In the center of Chabad Crown Heights, join us for the diasporist, exodus-exploring, olam-haba-envisioning seders of your dreams! We have been scheming about this since Yom Kippur and the time has come to invite you in as co-conspirators.…”

The words “scheming” and “co-conspirators” were meant playfully, I’m sure, as we were also informed to “Expect an evening filled with serious learning, enthusiastic debate, joyous singing, laughter, and, of course, lots of shtick.” Still, in today’s America, where conspiracy theories rule, the word choices furthered my ambivalence.

Beyond that, after nearly 550 days of war, I am not sure how playful I will feel with American Jews who oppose the idea of a Zionist state. Any number of dog-whistle words could blow up a seder debate.

I am not intent on reclaiming Gaza for Israel, and I believe Trump’s Riviera-on-the-Coast scheme is absurd. Yet the Israel-Hamas War has rendered my dreams for a two-state solution comatose. Unless Israel neutralizes Hamas the way America routed ISIS, I fear there is no long-term peace deal to resuscitate.

Since settling in Tel Aviv, my wife and I have lived through the COVID-19 epidemic and nearly a year of demonstrations against the anti-democratic judicial reforms of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. None of that prepared us for the horrors of October 7, 2023. 

As I contemplate a Crown Heights seder, I have several questions to pose.

Who can explain what role Donald Trump played in Israel’s joining China and North Korea in the United Nations vote to declare Ukraine the aggressor in its current war against the soldiers of Putin and Kim Jong Un?

Who knows what it will take for Trump to change his mind about the Middle East and label Netanyahu a dictator guilty of genocide in Gaza?

Who can tell me how anti-Zionists think about the Hamas Charter of 1988 (revised in 2017), which calls for the complete destruction of Israel and a non-stop, unrestrained holy way to achieve that goal?

And how does Hamas’s strangling to death in captivity of the young Israelis Ariel and Kfir, the children of Shiri Bibas, also murdered by Hamas, fit into a discussion about genocide?  

If I raise any of these questions during a seder “filled with serious learning and enthusiastic debate,” am I going the way of the Haggadah’s wise or wicked son?  

Or, for the sake of  “joyous singing, laughter, and, of course, lots of shtick” am I better off playing the stupid son, or the one who does not know how to ask?