By Michael Fleisher and Yona Wiseman. Next Year in Jerusalem: A New Passover Story.. Well not exactly. Although I was in Israel I had my Seder in Tel Aviv. I did make it to Jerusalem but after the holiday started. So maybe it counts… at least existentially.
Passover celebrates the biblical exodus of the “collective” Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Jews celebrate it for approximately eight days. It starts with a ritual dinner called the “Seder” which incorporates various symbolic foods. Part of this tradition includes not eating leavened bread. The Seder I went to was fairly secular, hosted by Jews of Romanian descent. There was no bread but I was certain it would re-appear in that household right after the Seder because when I was snooping around, I witnessed a whole grain loaf hidden away in the bread drawer. You are supposed to burn all bread or chammetzbefore Passover starts, like a ritual Jewish Spring cleaning.
Indeed I was suffering from some anticipatory anxiety about not eating bread for a week since I am not usually that observant. However, sexy and secular Tel Aviv lived up to its reputation and was not a chammetz-free zone… the cafes stayed full.
When the Jewish people left Egypt they headed towards the present state of Israel via the Sinai desert, where they received the Ten Commandments. Apparently the sea that parted was the Red Sea near the Suez Canal. I had a visceral connection to the Hollywood version of this story in the film, The Ten Commandments, starring an often bare-chested Charlton Heston. My idea of Moses always featured Charlton until he became a well known lobbyist in the United States for abolishing any form of gun control. Since then I have been looking for another Passover story. And on this trip to Israel, at Passover, I did just that.
The Darfur region is located in western Sudan, Africa populated by Arabs and Africans, all Muslim. It is poor and draught ridden. When conditions worsened in the 1980s, the Arab-run central government challenged the right of Africans to live in Darfur. This conflict became the focal point of a large scale genocide. The results were horrific. Over 700,000 Africans were killed and 3,000,000 displaced.
Refugees fled to Chad and Egypt. The first Darfurian refugees entered Israel via the Sinai (through Egypt) in 2005. Since then, over 5,000 Darfurian Muslim refugees have made their way to Israel. They saw it and still see it as a safe haven. In Egypt they suffered abuse and torture. Some described the horrific practice of forced organ donations, with doctors flying from Cairo to the Sinai by helicopter for impromptu operations conducted without consent and in unhygienic conditions.
To celebrate Passover and raise awareness, Israeli volunteers through an organisation called “B’nai Darfur” (or, Sons of Darfur), organised an outdoor free Seder for refugees living in Tel Aviv. It was held in Levinski Park near the main bus station last week.
The Seder was a sea of bright and healing energy. Although conditions in Israel are better for these refugees there is still a lot of work to do and that involves integrating these people into Israeli culture, providing training and housing. B’nai Darfur is now focusing on two major things: organizational infrastructure through community building; and outreach programmes and humanitarian aid.
There is a mobile library in the park called “The Garden Library”. Volunteers encourage learning, literacy and teach Hebrew to the refugees. There were stands handing out literature. It had a similar vibe to the protests at St. Pauls Cathedral in London, and the peaceful government protests in Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv, last summer.
There was a outdoor area where food was being prepared in large steaming vats. Lines of rented tables were set with matzos, olives, soft drinks and later cooked food. Jewish volunteers from all over the world (I spoke to Israelis, Canadians, Germans and Americans) were banging into each other with serving plates and dishes. I actually had to fight my way to the buffet to fill a plate and then serve it. Everyone wanted the opportunity to participate and help.
The speeches, translated into Hebrew, English, and Masalit (the regional language of the Western Sudan), were moving and used the evocative symbolism of Passover: “We walked through the Sinai desert into freedom and we know the path you are taking. As family we want to live together in freedom.”
The Seder ended with some excellent DJ’d music. We all felt we did something if not witness a modern day exodus. But what overwhelmed me the most, when I walked away to a quiet part of the park, watching a few of the men kick around a ball, was a sudden transferred feeling of displacement. Over 5000 people, displaced, living in a park, miles from home, with nowhere to go. All the best intentions could not change that.
I re-joined the crowd, then headed down to Bugsy’s in the Florentine for some decent wiener schnitzel and some excellent Israeli wine. I wasn’t thinking about Charlton’s profile or his chest. 
