JERUSALEM (AP) – A year ago, Giordana Grego’s parents spent Easter at their home in Israel, alone, but grateful to have escaped the worst of the pandemic in Italy. This year, the whole family will come together to celebrate the Jewish feast of liberation and liberation from the pandemic.
Israel vaccinated more than half of its 9.3 million population and, as coronavirus infections plummeted, authorities allowed restaurants, hotels, museums and theaters to reopen. Up to 20 people can now meet indoors.
It’s a total turnaround compared to last year, when Israel was at the first of three national blockades, with closed companies, checkpoints set up on empty roads and people confined to their homes. Many could only see their elderly relatives on video calls.
“For us in Israel, actually celebrating the feast of freedom definitely has a totally different meaning this year, after what we have lived through,” said Grego, who immigrated from Italy to Israel. “It is incredible that this year we can celebrate together, also considering that in Italy, everyone is still in prison.”
Passover is the Jewish holiday that celebrates the biblical liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt after a series of divine plagues. The week-long spring festival begins on Saturday night with the highly ritualized meal of the Seder, when the Exodus story is retold. It’s a Thanksgiving atmosphere with family, friends, a party and four cups of wine.
Throughout the week, practicing Jews abstain from eating bread and other fermented foods to commemorate the difficulties of fleeing Egypt. Instead, they eat matzo without yeast.
Holiday preparations involve extreme spring cleaning to remove even the smallest leavened bread crumbs from homes and offices. Pots of boiling water are placed on street corners to boil cooking utensils, and many burn the discarded bread, known as chametz. Supermarkets isolate corridors with fermented products, involving black plastic shelves.
Most Israeli Jews – religious and secular – spend the Seder with relatives. Last year’s Easter was a huge break from tradition.
Restrictions imposed by the government forced the closure of synagogues and limited movement and assembly to slow the spread of the virus. Some conducted the ritual meal with their nuclear family, others by videoconference, while a few unfortunate ones kept the Seder in solitude.
Another blockade was imposed during Jewish holidays in September, again avoiding family reunions, and a third occurred earlier this year with the emergence of more contagious variants of the virus.
In the third blockade, Israel had launched one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, after the government secured millions of doses of Pfizer and Moderna. Israel has already vaccinated more than 80% of its adult population.
It is too early to say that the coronavirus crisis in Israel is over, as new vaccine-resistant variants may emerge.
The vaccination campaign in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza has been slow to take off, with Israel facing criticism for not sharing more of its supplies. Israel vaccinated more than 100,000 Palestinian workers working in Israeli settlements and the West Bank and sent a few thousand doses to the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinians imported more than 130,000 doses on their own, but it may take several months for vaccines to be available to the vast majority of the nearly 5 million Palestinians in the territories. Experts say this could pose a risk to Israel’s public health efforts.
For now, however, Israelis are enjoying what appears to be a post-pandemic reality, giving Easter a special meaning.
“It is not only symbolic that it is the holiday of freedom, but also the holiday of the family,” said Rabbi David Stav, chief rabbi of the city of Shoham and head of the liberal orthodox organization Tzohar.
“This year, families are coming together. So lonely people, especially older people, who were disconnected from their families, suddenly discover the freedom and the joy of being with them ”.