Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread (or to give it its Hebrew name, Pesach) is one of the principal festivals in Judaism. Traditionally coinciding with Easter (but not always), it begins on the 15th Nisan in the Jewish calendar – which falls any time between early March and late April in the Gregorian calendar. It is one of the Jewish religion’s three harvest festivals – the other two being Pentecost (or Shavuot), in early summer, and Tabernacles (Succot) in the autumn.

But what’s it all about?

The festival itself commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, where the Bible tells us they were enslaved by the evil Pharaoh (if you’ve ever watched The Ten Commandments or The Prince Of Egypt, you’ll be familiar with this bit). This went on for years, until Moses came along and demanded their freedom ¹ When Pharaoh refused, God sent ten plagues to the Egyptian people, culminating in the death of their first-born. Pharaoh finally bowed to pressure after this mass tragedy and sent the Israelites packing, but changed his mind once they’d gone and tried to get them back. Except, in yet another miracle, God parted the Red Sea allowing them to walk through, but drowning the Egyptians who had been in hot pursuit. Hence they escaped, for which the Jewish people should be eternally grateful.

Customs and laws

The reason Passover is known as the Feast Of Unleavened Bread is because that’s pretty much all Jews are allowed to eat for the duration of the festival. All right, well that’s not strictly true. The story goes that when the Israelites left Egypt, they had to hurry and didn’t have time to properly bake bread for their travels – instead what came out of the oven was a flat, cracker-type arrangement which hadn’t had time to rise properly, or leaven. Hence, for the week of the festival, Jews do not eat bread or any other products made with flour or wheat – so most types of cakes and biscuits as well as pasta, cereals, and certain alcoholic drinks (beer etc.) are also a no-no. Other types of grain – including corn, rye, oats and spelt, are also on the banned list.

But wait! There’s more where that came from. Not only are Jews not allowed to eat any of these products – known as chametz – but for the duration of the festival, they’re not allowed to own them either, or even have the slightest trace of them in the house. Most people take care of this with a ritual known as ‘selling of chametz’, which takes place a day or two before the festival and involves a small religious ceremony in the presence of a rabbi. In the days of East European shtetls ², Jews would sell their chametz to neighbouring non-Jews, and would often return for it at the end of the festival only to discover that their neighbours had polished off all their alcohol!

Here’s where it gets even more complicated – since it is forbidden to own or consume chametz on the festival, the house has to be cleaned from top to bottom, and all crockery and cutlery used on a day-to-day basis has to be replaced with separate sets used only on Passover (which have never been in contact with any chametz). Some ultra-Orthodox Jews take it even further and have separate kitchen facilities which they use only on Pesach ³. This is in order to avoid the possibility that any trace of chametz may have been left on a non Passover-friendly plate or dish – although these days, with most houses having a good supply of hot water and decent cleaning facilities, this is less likely. A ceremony known as ‘searching for chametz’ is carried out the night before the festival begins, and involves going round the house with a feather and candle, looking for any traces of chametz which might have been overlooked in the Passover preparations. Anything found is burned the following day.

As well as buying unleavened bread – known as matzo – most Jews also change over all the food in their cupboards, consuming only products which have been approved as suitable for use on Passover - again, due to the possibility that some chametz may have fallen into the product during the manufacturing process. However, this applies largely to processed and manufactured products – fresh produce, such as meat, fish, eggs, fruit and vegetables can be consumed as normal with no special procedures required.

And despite the above laws, many people these days do adapt the rules to suit themselves – rather than getting rid of all the chametz in the house, most people will simply pack it away and store it in a room that they’re unlikely to use for the duration of the festival. Some will steer clear of bread and other grain-based products, but won’t change any of their other footdstuffs and will simply run their regular plates through boiling water and continue to use them.

Others will change every bit of food right down to the salt in their salt cellar. Just to confuse matters further, Sephardic Jews ⁴ are permitted to eat rice and similar products on Passover, because they were such a staple of the Sephardic diet in bygone days that they would have been seriously stuck for dinner ideas over the festival. While such products aren’t strictly forbidden on the festival, Ashkenazi Jews ⁵ traditionally steer clear.

Despite the restrictions, there are plenty of mouthwatering traditional foods consumed over the festival. Cakes can be made with matzo meal (very finely ground matzo) instead of flour, and have a unique taste as a result. Macaroons made with ground almonds, sugar and eggs are also popular, as are coconut pyramids (made with desiccated coconut) and potato kugel (potatoes shredded with onions, egg, matzo meal and seasoning, formed into a pudding and baked in the oven). Some enterprising kosher food companies also offer products such as Passover-friendly bagel mix and breakfast cereal – however these tend to taste pretty unpleasant and nowhere near as nice as the real thing.

It can’t all be about food though, surely….

Well, pretty much. On the first two nights of the festival, families get together and conduct a special service at home known as a Passover Seder (the word Seder being Hebrew for ‘order’), the centrepiece of which is an elaborate celebratory meal halfway through. During the service itself – which is read from a special Passover prayer-book known as the Haggadah – the following customs are observed:

1 Four cups of wine are drunk during the service. This is separate of any wine you may drink with your dinner, thus the opportunity to get nicely sloshed is present. However, this isn’t an excuse to pop into the cellar and break out a nice vintage Merlot, since the wine used during the service is a special type of wine used in Jewish religious ceremonies.

2 The youngest person present asks four questions – known as the Manish-tanah – relating to the rituals conducted during the service, the main one being “Why is this night different from all other nights”? Technically this is an opportunity for little Moishe or Rivke (traditional Orthodox Jewish names) to show off what they’ve learned at Hebrew classes, in other cases when the youngest person at the table is 35 years old, it is a tad more perfunctory.

3 A special plate, known as a Seder plate, is present on the table throughout. This features the following items: a roasted egg (to symbolise life), a green vegetable such as parsley (eaten at the start of the service as an hors d’oeuvre of sorts), bitter herbs (to symbolise the bad times in Egypt) – traditionally horseradish but can be any bitter vegetable), salt water (to symbolise the tears of the Israelites in Egypt), a shank bone (to commemorate the slaying of the first born in Egypt, when Israelites were told by God to kill a lamb and paint their doors with its blood, thus meaning they would be spared execution), and a dish called Haroseth, made from chopped apple, wine and spices (dried fruit can also be added). It symbolises the mortar the Israelites used when they were slaves in Egypt, but is also used as a dip for the bitter herbs to disguise the taste when they are eaten.

4 Matzo is eaten. Many Jews abstain from eating it before the Seder service on the first day of the festival, which actually begins several hours before the service. Also items on the Seder plate are consumed at various points in the service, including the green vegetable (which is dipped in the salt water), and the bitter herbs (which is dunked in the Haroseth).

5 A special piece of matzo, known as the Afikoman, plays a central role in the service. It is traditional for the person conducting the service to hide it somewhere in the house and for the younger members of the family to make a game out of looking for it (usually during dinner). It is also significant in that everybody seated at table rounds off their meal by eating a piece – after which nothing else can be eaten.

6 A cup of wine is poured and prayer is said for the prophet Elijah, who apparently visits every house conducting a Seder service for a quick drink.

7 The festive meal traditionally kicks off with a starter of hard-boiled egg in salt water, again to symbolise that life goes on.

8 On the second night, the start of the Omer – a sad period in the Jewish calendar – is announced. During the Omer celebratory events involving music are not permitted (so you can get married but you can’t have a mobile disco afterwards, in other words).

9 The service itself ends with the phrase ‘Next Year In Jerusalem’, symbolising the Jewish people’s wish to celebrate in Israel next year. After this a number of songs are sung, most notably Chad Gadya, a nursery-rhyme like chant about a goat, in Hebrew.

10 During the service, participants traditionally lean to the left, to symbolise the fact that as we are no longer slaves, we can sit however we like.

Passover On Screen

Being such a major part of the Jewish calendar, Passover has of course been portrayed in various ways on film and TV, with the following being the most notable:

When Do We Eat (2006)? This offbeat comedy drama was released in US cinemas last year to coincide with Passover but is still waiting to see the light of day in the UK. Barton Fink star Michael Lerner plays the head of a dysfunctional family, who has a Seder to remember after accidentally ingesting a hallucinogenic drug slipped to him by his youngest son.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Series 5 Episode 7 – The Seder: Traditionally Jews are supposed to invite other Jews to their Seder when they have nowhere else to go (if they have no family nearby, for example). However, Larry David lands himself in a spot of bother when he invites one of their new neighbours – who happens to be a convicted child molester.

The Prince Of Egypt (2000)/The Ten Commandments (1956): Both the animated hit and the Charlton Heston epic feature the Passover story, albeit in very different ways. One features Heston doing his Moses impersonation, the other retells the story with a few comedy camels and musical numbers thrown in for good measure.