Celebrating Passover in changing times

LOS ANGELES - Wednesday Night, Opthamologist Dr. Rob Feinfield hosted a Passover Seder. 

As his family sat around a large dining room table, they talked about how Passover is a celebration of escaping slavery and how it is a celebration of Freedom from oppression.

The dinner service was full of symbolic foods and song recalling a time of slavery in Egypt at the time of Moses

On the guitar, he and his cousin sang, "Go down Moses," which has the famous words "Let my people go." 

To Feinfield, this Passover is particularly relevent with the increase in hate speech and crimes we’ve seen, like the shooting this year of two Jewish men in the Pico-Robertson area as they left the synagogues.

"I think about hate speech and hatred toward others for all people particularly for the Jews. It’s not lost on me that the Jews have been used as a scapegoat throughout the centuries and in current events unfortunately," Feinfield said.

A Seder is filled with tradition like the youngest children asking the "four questions" of why this night is different than all other nights. But this year, it’s different than other years.

Joanna Mendelson with the Jewish Federation says that is true this year.

"Especially with the rise of antisemitism and extremism and heat happening here in America as well as in Israel. We are really seeing the need for us to build bridges with communities outside our own community," Mendelson said.

The Jewish Federation, in conjunction with Supervisor Holly Mitchell and Mayor Karen Bass, did that Monday with an interfaith Passover Seder which was not too dissimilar than the one Rob Feinfield’s family had on the first night of Passover.