Staying or Leaving: A Passover Test of Where We Stand

Last week, a relatively small group of fifty people landed here in Israel. They were from the UK and France, and they were not coming for vacation or on a solidarity mission or even for a Passover program. In the middle of a war, these people chose to make aliyah and to make Israel their home. I am in awe of them, and, frankly, jealous that they had this opportunity, even though I am a relatively recent immigrant myself. But mostly, I am so proud to call them my brothers and sisters and I would stand for them were they to walk into the room.

At the same time, there’s been a mass exodus of yeshiva boys and seminary girls, mostly Americans, who have been leaving the country to make their way back to their parents’ homes for Passover. To be clear, that is an annual phenomenon; every year, around this time, the students—or their parents—choose to go back to the States for Passover rather than spending the holiday in Israel. I get it: schools are closed; in some cases, the dormitories are closed so the students really have to clear out; there’s no structure to the day anymore while on this extended break; and for many, it is difficult to find a place to have a second seder and an eighth day of Passover in a country where the standard is to have one seder and only seven days of holiday. And while for many reasons I am personally in favor of students staying in Israel for the holiday, I do understand why they often go back. However, this year’s mass exodus hits a little differently.

Part of this, I recognize, is simply a case of bad timing. By and large, these same students would have been leaving for Passover during a typical year, and so they are continuing with their plans, albeit via altered routes for many. But it speaks volumes about our values if we can so blithely walk away from Israel in her time of need simply because, well, that’s what we’ve been planning since September. And to the ones who would argue that it’s unsafe to stay, I wonder: Is it less safe for the Americans than it is for the Israelis? Do the passports we hold alter the value of our respective safety?

There’s another aspect to this, and that is the route that many of these people are taking to make their way back for Passover. They’re going through Egypt. The sheer irony of leaving Israel through Egypt to celebrate the holiday of our freedom from Egypt is so immense that no self-respecting fiction writer would ever put it to words because it’s just too unbelievable. Yet, in a world in which truth is stranger than fiction, that’s what’s been happening. En masse, there are people streaming out of Israel, the ancient homeland of the Jewish people, the land that was built on the blood, sweat, and tears of the people who came before us so that we can build our lives here in relative comfort (with air conditioning! And iced coffee! And a bakery on every corner!), leaving through the very land where Moses spent a full year invoking the strength of the God of the Hebrews before the pharaoh finally relented and let the people go.

I am not here to comment on the safety of going through Egypt, or to verify or debunk the various stories that have made their way around social media. Frankly, I’m not even here to criticize. I’m just so utterly disappointed, in us as a people, that we are so desperate to leave Israel that this is what we are doing, this is what we are justifying, and this is what we are promoting. And I’m embarrassed for myself, as a member of a people who bear responsibility for one another, to think that I may have in some way contributed to this reverse exodus.

In the aftermath of October 7, it seemed as though there was a constant stream of Americans coming to Israel, desperate to show their support and solidarity with more than just donations and gear. They organized missions, they hosted barbecues, they sponsored evenings with singers to come on bases—you name it, it happened. The American Jewish community, if we can even refer to it as a monolith, showed up in the most beautiful way. I fully understand that it’s really, really hard to get to Israel right now, and to be clear, no one expects that same sort of response. But does that mean that our children should be leaving in droves? And through Egypt, no less?

Desparate to Come Home

As disappointed as I am, as embarrassed as I am, I choose to find the good in our people. I look at the parents who told their children that as much as they might have wanted to come back for Passover, there’s no such thing as leaving Israel right now. I see the students who were on the fence about staying before the war broke out and chose to stay, not in spite of the war, but because of it. I see the small, resilient group of fifty, and I see the spirit of am Yisrael, the nation of Israel, alive and well as they come home to their land and their people.

And I see the people who live outside of Israel and who were not here before but are desperate to come. I see the ones who are looking at tickets now for one, two, three months out, because now is the time to buy.

In advance of every holiday, my mother makes a comprehensive menu to plan out her meals and her cooking. This year, she’s got the korban Pesach, the Passover sacrifice, listed as her meal for the first night.

I see that, and I see hope. I see all of this, and I see the people who we can admire as heroes, the ones who know who we are, where we are coming from, and where, ultimately, we are going.