This year Passover happens from sundown Friday April 19, 2019 until sundown on Saturday April 27th.
On Ukrainian Jewish Heritage, Nash Holos shares the details about the ancient traditions and rituals of Passover, as well as a litany of the difficulties Jews faced in Soviet times of religious repression to observe such important holidays as Passover.
Matzo is central to Passover, since it is unleaved bread. During Passover, Jews area forbidden to eat anything containing leaven.
Today Jews living in Ukraine and other countries of the former Soviet Union are able to freely celebrate Passover and matzo is not nearly so difficult to come by. Which is not to say that makes the culinary choices for Jews during Passover easy by any means.
In selecting topical tunes for this week's edition of Nash Holos, I came across several delightful videos on YouTube with great audio tracks that I could share with listeners.
They include two tunes which I thought were perfect to follow the Ukrainian Jewish Heritage feature on Passover.
The first is a hilarious parody of the Irving Berlin classic "Cheek to Cheek." It is sung by Adam B. Shapiro with much different and (needless to say) much funnier lyrics!
The second is a find that was astonishing as it was delightful. It is a video recording of a live performance somewhere in Ukraine (presumably) of a man and some children singing a bilingual version of the Passover hymn Let My People Go, also known as Go Down Moses.
Here there are. Enjoy!
