RSS
Pesach is Personal
An image from “Family at the Seder,” from the 1935 Haggadah by artist Arthur Szyk (b. 1894, Lodz, Poland—d. 1951, New Canaan, CT). Photo: Courtesy of Irvin Ungar
JNS.org – Passover is less than two weeks away, and it’s always interesting to see the many holiday customs that are observed by different communities. They are as different as we are. While the basic observances are pretty much universal, everybody seems to have their own unique way of celebrating. Each family has distinct traditions and customs handed down from generation to generation—not only Ashkenazi and Sephardi, Chassidic or Lithuanian, but every individual family. Whether it’s how to find the afikomen or our favorite seder songs, we all seem to have definite views on how things ought to be done.
Sometimes, our personal Passover practices can be rather outlandish. Take the woman who does not actually keep kosher year-round but during Pesach, she “changes over.” This isn’t logical, but who am I to be dismissive of a Jew’s desire to connect to God and keep a mitzvah? I can only hope that she will “change over” permanently and keep kosher for the rest of the year as well.
Historically, most families were stricter on Pesach than the rest of the year. The most religiously observant people underwent stringencies they never observed at other times. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., we never ate out during the eight days of the holiday. Not even at the homes of our most religious friends or people we ate with on Shabbat or Yom Tov. Why not? I suppose it was because every family has its own restrictions on Pesach. This one does this and the other does that. This fellow won’t eat this product and the other doesn’t touch that vegetable. We all respected each other’s right to be extreme or meshuggah frum on Pesach.
But why?
There are two reasons behind this special scrupulousness on Pesach. One is practical; the other is halachic and somewhat technical.
Practically speaking, we need to be stricter and take additional precautions on Passover because foods that are perfectly kosher during the rest of the year are for this one week strictly forbidden. Bread and biscuits, chocolate cake and challah, pizza and pasta, wafers and whisky may be 100% kosher and deliciously edible every week of the year, but during this one week, they become absolutely treif. We could easily make an innocent mistake and take a bite of any of these foods if available and within easy reach. So, we make sure that the house is thoroughly cleaned and that all chametz is locked away. Thus, no innocent mistakes can be made.
Then there is the halachic reason. You may have heard of the concept of bittul or “nullification.” This is a principle of kashrut that holds there are times when, for example, a small amount of milk becomes mixed into a larger amount of meat. The milk will be overwhelmed and “nullified” by the meat, and usually, the forbidden mixture may still be kosher. I hasten to add that these issues must be addressed by a qualified rabbi only.
Say you are preparing your Shabbat meal, and your domestic chef slips on a banana peel and accidentally spills her milk tea into your pot of chicken soup. Do not throw out the soup! Call your rabbi. Depending on the circumstances, he may be able to help save your Friday-night dinner from disaster.
You know the story of Tevye der Milchiger? He was the milkman in the shtetl. Well, one day, the unthinkable happened. The caterer was preparing a wedding feast, and one of his workers slipped on the proverbial banana peel and his milk tea went flying into a vat of meat. Can you imagine the calamity if there were no dinner for the hundreds of hungry wedding guests? The rabbi of the shtetl was called in to deal with this most serious halachic question—a very grave shaaloh indeed.
The wise old rabbi called Tevye into his private study. He closed the door tightly and whispered into the milkman’s ear: “Tevye, tell me the truth, how much water do you pour into your milk?”
“Rebbe, you would accuse me of cheating my customers?!”
“Tevye, it’s just me and you here behind closed doors. Please, it’s very important that I know. How much water?”
“Rebbe, efsher ah bissel, ‘maybe only a little bit.’”
“Tevye, I beg of you, your secret is safe with me. Please tell me the truth. How much water do you normally add to your milk?”
What can I tell you? By the time the rabbi extracted the whole truth from Tevye, he was satisfied that the meat for the wedding was not only strictly kosher but that Tevye’s milk was probably pareve!
Still, during Passover, the kashrut concept of bittul does not apply. Chametz is such a strict prohibition that it can never be overwhelmed, no matter how big the pot may be. Even an infinitesimal amount of chametz will render the biggest pot of Passover food absolutely forbidden.
Thus, we must be as stringent as possible to keep even the smallest piece of chametz far and away from us and our families. Hence, our extreme strictness on Pesach.
Some people ask why we need so many kosher-for-Passover products today when in the good old days, we never had all those options, and it was just fine. Others insist on every convenience over Pesach to make it more enjoyable. Still others will go to a beautiful hotel—in Israel or some exotic destination—where every luxury is laid on and it is truly their “Festival of Freedom.”
To each our own. Whether it is our unique childhood memories of fathers or zaydes conducting a traditional seder, or the seder songs of our youth that still play on our soul strings, the dedication to Passover is alive in Jewish hearts. Thus it should be for the festival that celebrates the very birth of our nation.
While it may be our national birthday and the very beginning of Jewish peoplehood, Pesach is also a very personal Yom Tov. We each celebrate it in our own ways and styles, with our own special memories and even our own curious idiosyncrasies as well.
I wish all my readers a chag kasher v’sameach!
The post Pesach is Personal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Bryan Singer Secretly Filmed Period Drama With Jon Voight Critical of Israel for Lebanon War: Report
Jon Voight at the opening night of the 2023 Beverly Hills Film Festival held at TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood, California, on April 19, 2023. Photo: FS//AdMedia/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Jewish-American filmmaker Bryan Singer has returned to the director’s chair after a long hiatus with a film starring Oscar winner Jon Voight that is set in the Middle East and critical of Israel, Variety revealed on Wednesday.
Singer secretly filmed the period drama and one source who saw the final cut, but is not involved with the production, thinks the feature is “going to be a huge hotbed of controversy” because of its attention on the Middle East. “It makes Israel look really bad and could be polarizing,” the insider told Variety.
The source said the film is set in late 1970s or early 1980s. On June 6, 1982, Israel launched the First Lebanon War against Palestinian terrorists based in southern Lebanon following the attempted assassination of Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom Shlomo Argov by a terrorist cell.
The “Superman Returns” director shot the new film in Greece in 2023, and it focuses on the relationship between a father and son, Variety added. Israeli filmmaker Yariv Horovoitz is also reportedly collaborating on the project. There are no details about a release date.
Voight is a longtime supporter of Israel and said in 2018 that he feels an obligation to combat antisemitism. Last year, he was critical of his daughter, actress and filmmaker Angelina Jolie, when she slammed Israel’s defensive military campaign against Hamas in Gaza following the Palestinian terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
Singer – who was raised Jewish in suburban New Jersey – has not directed in mainstream Hollywood since he was infamously fired by 20th Century Fox from “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2017 and replaced during shooting, after several absences during the film’s production. He was signed on to direct a remake of the action film “Red Sonja,” but was reportedly fired from the project amid allegations in 2019 of sexual misconduct involving minors, which he denied.
The director’s past credits include four films in the “X-Men” franchise, “Valkyrie,” and the Oscar-winning film “The Usual Suspects.”
Singer faced sexual misconduct allegations starting in 1997, when two teenage boys claimed the director ordered them to strip naked for a scene in his film “Apt Pupil.” The filmmaker has never faced criminal charges for the sexual misconduct allegations made against him in 1997 or in later years.
Singer has been living in Israel for several years and Variety reported in 2023 that he was looking to make a comeback into the mainstream Hollywood film industry with features set in and around Israel.
RSS
Italian Law Professor Faces Backlash Over Viral Antisemitic Social Media Posts
An Italian law professor is facing mounting backlash after past antisemitic social media posts went viral, sparking outrage among the local Jewish community and public officials.
Professor Luca Nivarra, who teaches in the Faculty of Law at the University of Palermo in Sicily, has come under scrutiny after several of his social media posts went viral, spreading antisemitic and hateful content.
“I don’t want to meddle in matters that don’t concern me directly, but, having very few tools at our disposal to oppose the Palestinian Holocaust, a signal, however modest, could be to unfriend your Jewish ‘friends’ on Facebook, even the ‘good’ ones, who declare themselves disgusted by what the Israeli government and the IDF are doing,” Nivarra wrote in one of his posts.
“They lie, and with their lies, they help cover up the horror: it’s a small, tiny thing, but let’s start making them feel alone, face to face with the monstrosity to which they are complicit,” he continued.
On Tuesday, the university issued a public statement distancing itself from Nivarra’s antisemitic remarks. Despite mounting public outrage, Nivarra has not faced any disciplinary action yet.
Massimo Midiri, Dean of the University of Palermo, condemned such hateful rhetoric, calling it “a personal and culturally dangerous initiative, far removed from our academic principles.”
“Nivarra’s statements risk fueling the very dynamics he claims to oppose. Complex issues like the Middle East conflict require dialogue and critical engagement, not exclusion or ideological censorship,” Midiri said in a statement.
Italy’s Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini, also denounced Nivarra’s remarks, saying they “not only offend the Jewish people but also all who uphold the values of respect and civil coexistence.”
“Conflicts are overcome through dialogue, not isolation and it is only through this path that an authentic journey toward peace can be built, an objective to which Italy and the international community continue to dedicate their efforts,” the Italian diplomat wrote in a post on X.
This is not the first time Nivarra has made public antisemitic statements and spread anti-Jewish hateful rhetoric. In his previous Facebook posts, he also wrote that “there are no good Israelis” and that “Israeli society is morally rotten.”
Nivarra also compared the Israeli Defense Forces’ defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to the actions of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann during the Holocaust.
“The only difference between Adolf Eichmann and the IDF is that Eichmann defended himself by saying he was following orders, while Israeli soldiers happily do what they do,” he wrote in another social media post.
Since his posts went viral, Nivarra has faced mounting criticism on social media, but he has denied any accusations of antisemitism.
“You can call me an anti-Semite when I am not one at all. There is an insurmountable distance between me and the perpetrators of these horrors,” he wrote on his Facebook page.
RSS
‘Six Million Not Enough’: Minneapolis School Shooter Scrawled Antisemitic, Anti-Israel Messages on Guns
Law enforcement officers set up barriers after a shooting at Annunciation Church, which is also home to an elementary school, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ben Brewer
The lone suspect in Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, scrawled antisemitic and anti-Israel messages across his weapons and allegedly shared his desire to kill “filthy Zionist Jews” in a notebook before unleashing a barrage of gunfire on students and parishioners.
Law enforcement officials identified the shooter as Robin Westman, 23, who died by suicide at the scene. According to police, Westman opened fire during morning Mass in the school’s adjoining church, killing two children (aged 8 and 10) and injuring 17 others.
Witnesses said the church erupted in chaos as stained-glass windows shattered and gunfire ripped through pews filled with children. Teachers and staff rushed to shield students, with some ushering them outside the building.
The shooting is being investigated as both a domestic terrorism case and a hate crime against Catholics, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.
However, the assailant also appeared to endorse antisemitic conspiracies and express a desire to kill Jews and Israelis.
Researchers at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported they found videos believed to be from Westman showing firearms and ammunition magazines marked with the antisemitic messages. Investigators are also reviewing the now-deleted YouTube channel allegedly linked to Westman that featured disturbing videos uploaded before the attack.
“Israel must fall and “Burn Israel” were among the writings on the weapons, as seen in the video. In addition, the messages on the guns included “6 million wasn’t enough” — an apparent reference to the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust, and “Burn HIAS” — an apparent reference to a Jewish organization which helps settle refugees.
Westman also allegedly wrote “kill Donald Trump” on a gun magazine as well as anti-black and anti-Latino racist messaging.
The videos also included images of a notebook with writing in the Cyrillic alphabet.
“If I will carry out a racially motivated attack, it would be most likely against filthy Zionist jews,” the notebook said, according to a translation by the New York Post. Westman also allegedly wrote slogans such as “Free Palestine.”
Images of the content has been widely circulated on social media.
Robin Westman, the suspected shooter in today’s mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, appears to have had a YouTube Channel named “Robin W” which has since been deleted, that contained several video consisting of guns, a manifesto… pic.twitter.com/B3JJUOIGJp
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 27, 2025
Shocking antisemitic messages spotted on the Minneapolis shooter’s gun including:
– “Israel must fall,”
– “Burn Israel”
– “6 million wasn’t enough.”
– “ Burn HIAS (originally a Jewish resettlement org for refugees)Via our colleague @RealSaavedra pic.twitter.com/NFUnkRNlDs
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) August 27, 2025
An analysis of the shooter’s apparent manifesto by the ADL found no singular political motive. The assailant “scrawled numerous references and symbols on their weapons linked to a broad range of mass attackers, mimicking the 2019 Christchurch, 2022 Buffalo, and 2025 Antioch shooters, among others, who marked their weapons before launching their attacks,” the ADL wrote.
“The references found on the attacker’s weapons do not suggest a deep knowledge of white supremacy. Instead, the references point to a broader fixation on mass violence,” the group concluded.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who is Jewish, spoke with raw emotion after visiting the scene. “There are no words that can capture the horror and the evil of this unspeakable act,” he said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the students “were met with evil and horror and death.”
“We often come to these and say these unspeakable tragedies or there’s no words for this. There shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents because they should not happen and there’s no words that are going to ease the pain of the families today,” Walz added.
The suspect was reportedly a transgender woman who changed her name from Robert to Robin in 2020. Westman’s mother worked as a secretary at Annunciation until 2021, according to news reports, and authorities are still examining whether that connection influenced the target.
The tragedy adds to a growing list of school and faith-based shootings in the United States this year. Experts warn that antisemitic conspiracy theories, spread widely online, can inspire such violent attacks.
The tragedy came a week after the ADL released a new report highlighting how extremist online spaces are fueling not only school shootings but also a broader rise in antisemitism across the US. According to the report, many websites containing violent and gruesome material have pulled young people into white supremacist propaganda and conspiracy theories, inspiring them to commit deadly attacks.