Passover is a beautiful time. Pesach is the time to experience and acknowledge the Divine's unconditional adoration for you
and commemorate the miraculous exodus of the Jews from Egypt, after 210 years of oppression and cruel servitude.

Thanks for the reminder that we must all be willing to fast. No peas or hemp products this week. Your soul will grow into deeper spirit.

motzeltoff!

Yes, as a symbol of liberation and renewal, passover is a lovely thing.

It's just unfortunate that Moses is the hero of the thing. As the leader of an oppressed minority, he achieved freedom for his people. But once he was the leader of a nation, he became a power-mad dictator (Numbers 16) bent on the genocide of neighboring tribes, including the murder of their women and and male children and the rape of of their female children (Numbers 31).

It's a bit like Robert Mugabe, actually.

Jewish people have always been oppressed. It's sad that even on Slog antisemitic comments about Moses are posted during our sacred Passover holiday. Seattle is very antisemitic. Hipsters pretend to be "down" with Jews but it's the same old antisemitism dressed up in a white belt and tight slacks.

Well, if that's antisemitic you might want to remove it from your holy book, then.

Joe: You needed to go back 3000 years to find something really bad about Jews (who were not even Jews then but freed slaves, Israelites who just began to form an idea of a personal God)? Are you looking for justice for the Medianites? Let me take a wild guess: that verse in Numbers is the only thing you can quote about the Bible, right?

Shoshana: Is Seattle an antisemitic city? In my short visit there a few months ago I found it quite delightful. The couple of friends who showed me around the city did tell me about some antisemitic history but nothing really bad. Wasn't there a Jewish mayor in the early twentieth century?

Now Montreal, where I live, can boast some pretty antisemitic evidence, the most recent being:

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/199605

MONTREAL – A small explosion outside a Jewish community centre is sending a chill through Passover celebrations in the city by recalling the dramatic firebombing of a Jewish school three years ago.

Workers at the Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre in Montreal's west end reported hearing an explosion late Tuesday night.

"A homemade bomb exploded and there was a small fire," said police spokesperson Lynne Labelle.

The crude device resulted in no injuries and what little damage it caused was washed away by today's rain, she said.

But with the explosion coming right in the middle of Passover week and two days before the third anniversary of the firebombing of the United Talmud Torahs elementary school library, many in the Jewish community are concerned.