Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 61, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 5, 2007 Page: 3 of 32
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TJP V61-14, 04-05-07 p01-03 4/4/07 9:14 AM Page 3
-e
April 5,2007
Passover Issue
Texas Jewish Post
Passover: seven or eight days?
Some young Americans
want to take a pass on
Passover's eighth day
By Sue Fishkoff
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Why is April
3 different from all other nights in April?
On this night Conservative, Orthodox
and some Reconstructionist Jews outside
Israel will sit down to their second
Passover seder, while Reform and Israeli
Jews will eat as on any other night of the
holiday.
That's long-standing tradition. But
stirring the pot are some younger Amer-
ican Jews returning from Israel programs
who want to cast off their longer Dias-
pora observance and adopt Israeli
practice in solidarity with the Jewish
state.
"You come back, you're slightly shell-
shocked, and you're trying to hold onto
what you experienced there," said Rabbi
Kenneth Brander, dean of the Center for
the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University.
This time it really is Israel's fault.
"It's not just Passover in particular, it's
all the other holidays that you celebrate
for just one night in Israel," said Jennifer
Trebbin, 23, who spent last year in Israel
with Project Otzma, a 10-month volun-
teer program for recent college
graduates.
For the first time Trebbin celebrated
Passover for seven days instead of eight
and attended just one seder.
"Personally, I like it," she said."There's
something about doing it the Israeli way
that feels right."
Those who lead Israel programs dis-
avow any knowledge of the
phenomenon.
"I haven't heard of it," said Lymore
Hauptman, director of Hadassah's Young
Judaea Year Course in Israel, which takes
young Jews to Israel for the year before
college.
Officials at birthright israel, which
offers free Israel trips to young Jews, also
hadn't heard of it.
"I'm sure the kids talk about it,"
Hauptman conceded.
Indeed they do. Some seek rabbinic
guidance.
That's what Mike Schwartz, now 20,
did when he was on Young Judaea's Year
Course two years ago.
"I talked to the Conservative rabbi on
the program, and he said if you're living
in Israel, do seven days," Schwartz said.
His rabbi interpreted "living in Israel"
quite broadly. The Talmud advises Jews
to keep their home customs while vis-
iting Israel unless they are planning to
live permanently in Israel, in which case
they should adopt Israeli custom.
That's why Julia Garfinkel, 23, started
keeping shorter festivals while she was
on Otzma last year; she knew she'd be
staying in the country.
"For me it worked out fine. It's hard to
find second-night seders anyway in
Israel," said Garfinkel, who took Israeli
citizenship in September and is now a
music student at Tel Aviv University.
Schwartz observed Passover for seven
days the year he spent in Israel, but
resumed his eight-day practice back in
New York, where he is pursuing a joint
degree from Columbia University and the
Jewish Theological Seminary.
"Now that I'm living in America, I feel
I should follow the halachah," or Jewish
law,"as it applies to the Diaspora,"he Said.
The differing practices go back more
than 2,000 years to Jerusalem, when the
dates for Jewish festivals in the coming
month were declared by the rabbis of the
Sanhedrim the community's legal body,
according to when they sighted the new
moon.
As it took time for messengers to
reach Diaspora communities with that
report, ayom tovsheni, or second festival
day, was added to biblical festivals out-
side Israel to ensure that Jews there
observed at least part of each festival on
the correct day.
The extra Diaspora day was preserved
even after the institution of a fixed cal-
endar, with the Talmud declaring that
Sukkot and Passover be observed for
eight days, Shavuot and Rosh Hashanah
for two.
Yom Kippur was not extended
because of the burden of fasting, and
Rosh Hashanah is celebrated for two days
even within Israel because it falls on the
new moon instead of mid-month like the
other festivals.
In the 19th century, Reform leaders in
the United States abandoned the extra
festival day, declaring they did not accept
the concept of being in exile. Most
Reform Jews today understand their
shorter observance as being in line with
Israeli practice.
Orthodox Jews continue to keep the
extra days.
Brander said that in his 20 years as a
pulpit rabbi, he's had to sit down "on a
regular basis"with young returnees from
Israel. He shows them the Jewish sources
and explains that Jews in the Diaspora
"aren't in control of their destiny and can
lose their calendar at any moment," as
happened in the concentration camps
and in the Soviet Union.
While Brander said he is "sensitive'to
the desire of young American Jews to
remain connected to Israel, "the chal-
lenge is to feel emotionally connected
while still being rooted in Jewish law."
Most Conservative Jews also keep the
extra festival days,despite a 1960s ruling
by the movement's Rabbinical Assembly
permitting them to change their practice.
Rabbi Paul Drazen,program develop-
ment officer for the United Synagogue of
Conservative Judaism, said he is not
aware of any congregations that have fol-
lowed that ruling.
The Reconstructionist and Renewal
movements do not set national policy for
their congregations.
Rabbi Shai Gluskin, director of pub-
lishing and online resources for the
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation,
said most Reconstructionist Jews
observe Passover for seven days, consid-
ering the extra day an archaic custom
rendered unnecessary by modern tech-
nology. But they also usually observe two
seders, he said.
That's "a deeply held, long tradition in
the American Jewish community'
Gluskin said, whereas the eight-day
custom doesn't have the same pull.
Adherents of Jewish Renewal tend to
follow the movements from which they
came, said Rabbi Daniel Siegel, director
of spiritual resources for Aleph: Alliance
for Jewish Renewal.
"It wouldn't be renewal to decree one
form of legitimate practice to be better
than another," he said. "Rather we would
encourage people to learn about the var-
ious options and then select the ones
which are most likely to deepen the spir-
itual experience of the practice, keeping
in mind that many of our chevra," or
members,"have meaningful connections
to the mainstream Jewish movements."
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Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 61, No. 14, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 5, 2007, newspaper, April 5, 2007; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188143/m1/3/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .