Staff Passover Traditions

April 1, 2024 | Shabbat and Holidays

By Jewish Connection Network

Recently at a team meeting, our staff shared our families’ Passover traditions with each other. As we prepare for one of the most multi-sensory Jewish holidays of the year, we want to share these traditions—some creative, some joyful, and some silly—with you.

(Sung to the tune of Tradition! From Fiddler on the Roof)

Who, day and night, delights in building community
Bringing people together and celebrating Jewish holidays?
And who has the desire, as community connectors,
To share their love of Passover with you?
The Network, the Network! Tradition.
The Network, the Network! Tradition.

Seder Table Passover Traditions

• Addie Lewis Klein & Gabrielle Burger both share in the same tradition of holding a bag of Kosher for Passover marshmallows at the Seder table and when someone around the table answers a correct question, they throw a marshmallow at the person.
• Abigail Malischostak decorates her family’s table with props for the Ten Plagues so her children will enjoy the sensory experience.
• Amy Goldberg’s family shares the biography of a notable Jewish woman in history during the Seder when they pass around Miriam’s Cup and each add a bit of water to the cup.
• Gabrielle Burger shares her Sephardic Israeli family’s tradition of acting out the Passover story (children on their backs, water on the ground etc).
• Kate Kirby and her family invite young adults who don’t have family in the area to their Seder.

Haggadah Must Haves

• Brenda Footer hosts the first part of her Seder in the living room as it is commanded in the Haggadah to recline while retelling the Passover story.
• Rachel Pototsky uses the PJ Library Haggadah at her family’s Passover Seder.
• Rachel Turniansky and her family have a Passover grab bag activity. They each go around the house and find random things to put in the bag (dog and cat toys, kitchen gadgets, etc.) They then pass the bag around the table and each person picks an item. They have to describe how that random thing relates to what they’re talking about at the time in the Haggadah.
• Brenda Footer’s family uses pickles in addition to other vegetables during the Blessing for Adamah- fruit of the Earth.

Comedic Holiday Traditions

• Gabrielle Burger’s son Riley finds the afikoman and then re-hides it. He gives very complicated clues to find it.
• Erica Bloom’s family acts out the Seder as a satire.
• Addie Lewis Klein’s family has scallions to symbolically slap to remember our time as slaves in Egypt.
• Alli Berger’s family plays Passover trivia instead of having a full Seder.

Is it Time for the Meal Yet?

• Jodi Teitelman’s family, with the exception of her mom, takes turns around the table reading from the Haggadah. When it’s time for the meal, her mom is the one to say “Let’s eat”!
• Gabrielle Burger enjoys finding and serving interesting liquors that are Kosher for Passover.
• Amy Goldberg’s family serves Meatballs and Matzo balls, a dish that her husband’s grandmother created for the family.
• Addie Lewis Klein’s family serves deviled eggs instead of salted eggs as part of the meal.
• Abbi Sacks and her family eat pounds of chocolate toffee matzo candy.

If you have a family Passover tradition that you’d like to share with us, we would love to learn about it! Feel free to adopt one or more of our Passover traditions at your seder this year. Chag Pesach Sameach – Happy Passover.