The Diplomat
The Jewish community in Spain, made up of some 45,000 people, celebrates from this past Wednesday the Passover holiday, or Pesach in Hebrew, which commemorates the liberation from slavery in Egypt, an event that marks the birth of conscience as a nation and which constitutes one of the three major annual festivities of Judaism.
For a week, until Thursday, April 13, Spanish Jews, as well as Jews around the world, remember the departure of their people from slavery in Egypt, 3,300 years ago, led by Moses, the passage through the desert for 40 years and the arrival in Canaan, the Promised Land. It is an eminently family holiday and one of the most solemn in the calendar, as the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) recalled in a press release.
It is a tradition to prepare for Pesach with a thorough cleaning. Families thoroughly clean their homes and some keep the daily kitchen utensils in the kitchen to replace them during these days of Passover with special dishes. Besides, during the week that lasts this great feast, fermented foods are not consumed in memory of the haste to leave Egypt, which prevented the making of leavened bread. Matzah (unleavened bread) replaces the normal bread.
The big Passover date is the night of the Seder, the Passover meal, which this year was celebrated on Wednesday, April 5. “This night is special because we remember as a family the chapter of the departure from Egypt, and we decorate the table with a special dish (keara) containing six symbolic foods that evoke the history of the Israelites,” recalled the FCJE. The Passover Seder has a specific order and the ritual is followed by the Passover meal.
Specifically, the six foods are called Maror (fresh bitter herbs symbolizing the suffering of the people during slavery. It is usually used chicory or lettuce), Jazeret (lettuce stem symbolizing the harshness of slavery), Jaroset (sweet brown paste, a mixture of various nuts, apples and honey, representing the mortar that the enslaved Israelites made in Egypt), Karpas (a bitter-tasting vegetable, such as parsley or celery, which is dipped in salt water -representing tears- in memory of the sale of Joseph by his brothers which was the cause of the exile in Egypt), Zeroa (cooked chicken thigh or meat that recalls the sacrifice of the lamb that the Israelites made in Egypt) and Beitzan (boiled egg with its shell that symbolizes the sacrifice that was offered in the Temple of Jerusalem).
