By Ilana Williams

It’s time to pack up the sliced bread, oatmeal and muffins for the week and take out the Seder plate.

From sundown on April 15 to sundown on April 23, Jewish people around the world will celebrate Passover, which honors their ancestors’ freedom from slavery in Egypt and journey to Israel. 

It’s also a time for some favorite holiday traditions.

“Tradition is your ownership of Judaism,” Chabad Jewish Student Center Rabbi Eli Backman said. 

Backman starts cooking a week or two before Passover. 

“On Passover, people generally like to go a level or two above,” Backman said. 

Sometimes the University of Maryland branch of Chabad, a Hasidic Jewish group known for outreach and activities, hosts up to 50 people for their Passover Seders. 

Rachel Robin, a junior government and politics and communications double major, helps her mom make matzah toffee crunch and Mandel bread, a traditional Jewish cookie similar to biscotti.

“It’s a good time,” Robin said. 

During the Seder, Robin and her family eat brisket and matzo ball soup. Matzo balls are made of special unleavened bread called matzah, which is crushed into a meal and mixed with eggs.

Jews honor their ancestors by eating matzah on Passover instead of any leavened bread or grain products, referred to as chametz. As the story in the Haggadah goes, when the Jews left slavery in Egypt, they had no time to let their dough rise.

“Passover is my favorite because it tells a story of generational continuity,” Robin said. “It makes me feel connected to my ancestors.” 

Lanie Berger, a sophomore Jewish studies and business management double major, said her family members are Sephardi Jews, descendants of Jews from Spain and Portugal. 

“Passover is the time our Sephardi roots come out,” Berger said.

Berger said one of her family’s customs is making a special type of hard-boiled egg called haminados. They boil the eggs for 24 hours in a pot of water and onion skins. 

“The eggshells turn a dark, gorgeous, brown color,” Berger said. “And the eggs themselves taste different.”

Berger’s dad saves the onion peels from Hanukkah when he makes latkes, also known as potato pancakes. If he doesn’t have enough when Passover comes, he goes to the grocery store and digs through the onions there. 

“One time a grocery store worker was like ‘oh you’re making the eggs? I know what you’re doing,’” Berger said. “I’m not exactly sure how that tradition became a Sephardic thing, but I’m certainly glad it did.” 

Seder dinners require a Haggadah, a book that contains both the instructions for the dinner and celebratory songs. Robin’s family uses a Haggadah that came with a CD. She and her dad start and stop the songs when they show up in the book. 

“When we’re talking about the plagues, the little kids get up and jump around like frogs,” Robin said. “Then I’ll push play in the CD and it plays the frog song, and then they sing along.” 

Meira Goldfischer, a senior criminology and criminal justice major, said traditions vary across different sides of the family.

Goldfischer especially enjoys when her family reads the section in the Haggadah about how the Jews were released from slavery in Egypt.

She and her father carry a bag of matzah and chant “we were slaves and now we’re free.” 

“[It] looks a little bit crazy, but also is a really cool way to bring the Seder to life,” Goldfischer said. 

Sam Miller, a junior computer science major, and his family hit each other with scallions while singing Dayenu, a song about the Jews’ gratitude to God for rescuing them from Egypt. It’s part of his Jewish Persian custom — and his family grows their own scallions. 

“We grow our own scallions to make sure that they’re nice and thick and do some real damage to people,” Miller said. “My dad got scallion juice in his eye.” 

Liora Petter-Lipstein, a freshman public policy major, plays a game with the afikomen at family Seders. The afikomen is a symbolic piece of matzah that is hidden during the Seder and found at the end of the meal during dessert.  

Petter-Lipstein’s family performs a call-and-response song, passing the afikoman around the table as they pretend they are leaving Egypt.

Part of Jewish custom is to make charoset, a mixture of nuts, fruits, spices and wine. At Petter-Lipstein’s Seder, charoset has the consistency of applesauce.

The dates of the holiday change every year because Jewish holidays follow the lunar calendar. 

This year, Robin will spend the first night of Seder with her family and the second night with a friend. 

“One of the big benefits of being in college is getting to explore what customs I want to take on for myself and bring into my life when I graduate,” Robin said. “I’m really excited to keep exploring different aspects of Passover and what they could mean to me.”   

Hillel placed Haggadahs, books with instructions and stories of Passover, on each set for students to follow along during the Seder. Photo by Ilana Williams.

This article has been updated.