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DC to declare an official Mimouna day to celebrate end of Passover
WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s official: The mayor of the U.S. capital wants Washingtonians to celebrate the end of Passover with a traditional North African Jewish party.
In a proclamation set to be signed this weekend, Mayor Muriel Bowser will be urging her constituents to celebrate Mimouna, a feast that marks the end of the holiday and that has spread from North Africa to become popular in Israel and beyond.
“Now, therefore, I, the mayor of Washington, D.C., do hereby proclaim Sunday, April 16, 2023 in Washington, D.C. as ‘Mimouna – A Festival of Good Neighbors Day,’ and do commend this observance to all Washingtonians,” the proclamation says.
Bowser’s proclamation was shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by the Washington D.C. chapter of Sephardic Heritage International, which has organized local events around the celebration in the past and is also doing so this year. Bowser made a similar proclamation in 2021, according to the group’s website.
The celebration will take place this year at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and will feature a musical performance and traditional North African cuisine. Last year, Israeli and Moroccan government officials attended the D.C. festival. The countries normalized relations as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords.
“The festival is inspired by the Moroccan Jewish and interfaith narratives of unity, commemoration, goodwill, and friendship of neighbors,” Bowser will say in her proclamation.
Mimouna is traditionally celebrated as Passover ends — this year in the Diaspora on Thursday night, and on Wednesday night in Israel. Bowser’s proclamation and the corresponding festivities are timed for a weekend day so more people can attend.
Mimouna festivities are food-centered and particularly feature leavened cuisine as a celebration of no longer having to ingest matzah. The offerings traditionally include mufleta, a crepe-like fried pastry. The celebrations have become more common in recent years in Israel, and presence at Mimouna festivities has become de rigueur for Israeli politicians, whatever their ethnic origin.
The name of the celebration is believed to stem from the father of one of the most influential Sephardic Jews in history, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, known as Rambam or Maimonides. In addition to shaping Jewish thought and practice, the medieval scholar and philosopher lived part of his life in Morocco and was respected by Muslims as well as Jews. His father, Maimon ben Yosef, was also known for bridging Muslim and Jewish communities, and Muslims traditionally joined Jews in Mimouna festivities when Passover ended.
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The post DC to declare an official Mimouna day to celebrate end of Passover appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Qatari PM Meets Iran’s Larijani in Tehran, Discusses Easing Regional Tensions
Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani speaks after a meeting with the Lebanese president at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon February 4, 2025. REUTERS/Emilie Madi
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani met with top Iranian security official Ali Larijani in Tehran and reviewed efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, Qatar’s foreign ministry said on Saturday in a statement.
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Tesla Receives Approval to Test Autonomous Driving in Israel
March 12, 2025, Seattle, Washington, USA: A row of brand-new Tesla Cybertrucks stands in a Tesla Motors Logistics Drop Zone in Seattle, Washington, USA, on Wed., March 12, 2025. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
i24 News – The Ministry of Transport announced on Sunday that it has granted Tesla official approval to conduct trials of its autonomous driving system on Israel’s roads. The move comes as part of an effort to examine how the car manufacturer’s advanced technology can be integrated into the local driving environment, with full support from the ministry.
The trials will focus on Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system, a supervised autonomous driving platform. Under the terms of the approval, a driver must remain present in the vehicle at all times to supervise the system, despite its autonomous capabilities. This ensures safety while allowing the technology to be tested in real-world conditions.
The Ministry of Transport described the approval as a significant step toward advancing vehicle regulation in Israel. Officials said the initiative aims to create a regulatory framework that will allow for the routine, supervised use of autonomous driving systems in the future, safely and efficiently.
Tesla will use the trials to assess how the FSD system interacts with Israel’s road infrastructure, traffic patterns, and local driving behaviors. Data collected during the experiment will help refine the system and inform potential regulatory updates to accommodate autonomous vehicles.
The ministry emphasized that the pilot program is limited in scope and strictly monitored. It noted that all necessary safety protocols are in place and that public safety remains the top priority throughout the testing period.
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Reopening of Gaza’s Rafah Crossing Expected Monday, Officials Say
An aid truck moves on a road after entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
Gaza’s main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave’s main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.
Before the war, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was the only direct exit point for most Gazans to reach the outside world as well as a key entry point for aid into the territory. It has been largely shut since May 2024 and under Israeli military control on the Gazan side.
COGAT, the Israeli military unit that oversees humanitarian coordination, said the crossing will reopen in both directions for Gaza residents on foot only and its operation will be coordinated with Egypt and the European Union.
“Today, a pilot is underway to test and assess the operation of the crossing. The movement of residents in both directions, entry and exit to and from Gaza, is expected to begin tomorrow,” COGAT said in a statement.
A Palestinian official and a European source close to the EU mission confirmed the details. The Egyptian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
STRICT SECURITY CHECKS
Israel has said the crossing would open under stringent security checks only for Palestinians who wish to leave the war-ravaged enclave and for those who fled the fighting in the first months of the war to return.
Many of those expected to leave are sick and wounded Gazans in need of medical care abroad. The Palestinian health ministry has said that there are 20,000 patients waiting to leave Gaza.
An Israeli defense official said that the crossing can hold between 150-200 people altogether in both directions. There will be more people leaving than returning because patients leave together with escorts, the official added.
“(The Rafah crossing) is the lifeline for us, the patients. We don’t have the resources to be treated in Gaza,” said Moustafa Abdel Hadi, a kidney patient in a central Gaza hospital, awaiting a transplant abroad.
“If the war impacted a healthy person by 1 percent, it has impacted us 200 percent,” he said, sitting as he received dialysis treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. His travel request, he said, has been approved.
Two Egyptian officials said that at least 50 Palestinian patients will be processed on Sunday to cross Rafah into Egypt for treatment. In the first few days around 200 people, patients and their family members, will cross daily into Egypt, the officials said, with 50 people returning to Gaza per day.
Lists of Gazans set to pass through the crossing have been submitted by Egypt and approved by Israel, the official said.
NEXT PHASE OF TRUMP’S GAZA PLAN
Reopening the border crossing was a key requirement of the first phase of US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war.
But the ceasefire, which came into effect in October after two years of fighting, has been repeatedly shaken by rounds of violence.
On Saturday, Israel launched some of its most intense airstrikes since the ceasefire, killing at least 30 people, in what it said was a response to a Hamas violation of the truce on Friday when militants emerged from a tunnel in Rafah.
The next phases of Trump’s plan for Gaza foresee governance being handed to Palestinian technocrats, Hamas laying down its weapons and Israeli troops withdrawing from the territory while an international force keeps the peace and Gaza is rebuilt.
Hamas has so far rejected disarmament and Israel has repeatedly indicated that if the Islamist terrorist group is not disarmed peacefully, it will use force to make it do so.