Harold Kirtz’s 2022 Passover Message

The Challenges of Maintaining Freedom

This Festival celebrating the passage from slavery to freedom is coming at a propitious moment in United States and world history.

The pull of authoritarianism, both here and abroad, has created opportunities for mayhem that present challenges to the Jewish communities here and many other countries. The latest challenge is in Ukraine, which is affecting the whole population there, including the Jewish community.

As we celebrate Pesach, we should keep our fellow Jews in our minds, in our hearts, and in our prayers as they brave the weaponry of war while trying to maintain their freedom. At our family Seder, we will be adding something to the Seder plate to commemorate this latest fight for freedom.

How anyone wishes to mark these recent events, we should all keep in mind the efforts being made by the Ukrainian people to defend their country and their freedom.

In the United States, we are also defending our freedoms in an ongoing story against authoritarian tendencies that are at play. We must double down on our support for a free press, election voting fully open to all citizens, and full education of our country’s history and possibilities for students and adults.

Only when we have the full availability of the stories of all of our people will we be able to say that we have a more perfect union. We should use the Pesach table to tell more of our stories.

Harold Kirtz is president of the Jewish Community Relations Council.