Laura Glesby Photo
Megan Fountain co-leads a seder, calls for a ceasefire.
It is not enough that God took the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt, according to a group of pro-Palestine activists on Monday evening who turned a traditional Passover song on its head by singing “Lo dayeinu.”
The Passover song “Dayeinu” typically states that it would have been enough had God only freed the Jewish people, or parted the sea for their escape, or given them the Torah on Sinai — suggesting that God went above and beyond to perform all of these miracles, as the Exodus story goes.
But on Monday, anti-Zionist activists with Jewish Voice For Peace and Mending Minyan changed the words.
“If we shed our chains of bondage and do not work to set free others, it is not enough,” Esther Rose-Wilen called out to a small crowd of 35 people who had gathered for a Passover seder that doubled as a protest outside City Hall.
The negated rendition of Dayeinu was just one way this seder differed from all other Passover seders, as a reworked version of the traditional “Four Questions” song also observed.
“On this night,” as the song goes, an apple and nut spread called charoset symbolized not only the bricks laid by Jewish slaves in Egypt, but also the housing crisis affecting New Haven.
On this night, the seder plate of symbolic foods featured traditional offerings like egg (renewal) and parsley (springtime) alongside an acorn (Indigenous claims to the land) and olives (the olive trees in Gaza) and tomatoes (in honor of migrant farm workers).
On this night, no festive meal was enjoyed because “people are starving in Gaza.”
Instead of the meal, attendees were prompted to contact elected officials about their support of a proposed local ceasefire resolution that the Board of Alders will weigh at a public hearing on Wednesday.
The organizers connected the Passover theme of Jewish liberation from bondage to the notion that everyone’s freedom, including the freedom of both Gazans and the hostages taken by Hamas, is interconnected. “If our freedom is dependent on the oppression of other people, we will never truly be free,” said Ellen Rubin.
Hallie Voulgaris holds up the seder plate egg in honor of rebirth and renewal, as Debbie Elkin reads at Monday's protest.
Ellen Rubin holds up grape juice for kiddush.