Philip Klein
National Review, Apr. 27, 2023
“The conflict between being an open and liberal state and an explicitly Jewish one has led to clashes on immigration, transportation, social welfare, and army service, among many other topics.”
Spending Passover in Israel feels like cheating. For a Jew in America, the experience of going eight days without leavened bread products means buying as many spreads as possible in a vain attempt to add variety to matzah sandwiches. Eating out is limiting. It involves a choice of either explaining the holiday’s various dietary restrictions to waiters or placing odd sandwich orders: “Hold the bread — can I just have a pile of meat?” The lower the concentration of Jews in an area, the longer the explanations.
In Israel, however, getting through the holiday is a breeze, and not just because the fast is one day shorter. Here, many restaurants are made kosher for Passover, and all of them know what you mean when you say you’re observing the holiday. Creative chefs and bakers come up with ways to make all sorts of foods Passover-compliant. I’ve seen kosher-for-Passover rolls, waffles, pancakes, brioche French Toast, gnocchi, and chocolate lava cake. Even McDonald’s has a Passover menu, featuring a McRoyal on a Passover-safe sesame bun.
Commemorating the Jewish exodus from slavery in Egypt has far more than just culinary implications, of course. But the wide variety of eating options I found during Passover in Israel is a part, however tiny, of a modern miracle. Passover is just one week out of the year. For so many business owners to justify the effort put into making their restaurants kosher for Passover (a costly and time-consuming process that involves sanitizing the space under strict rabbinic supervision), for pastry chefs to bother engineering special rolls and cakes, and for a major fast-food chain to adapt its menu requires that two conditions be met. One is that Jews are comfortable openly practicing their religion without fear of persecution, and the other is that there are enough Jews to make it worthwhile for so many business owners to accommodate their observance. … [To read the full article, click here]
