Hello everyone and Chag Sameach!

I hope you are enjoying your Matzah and gefiltafish, I hope your family dinner was fun and uneventful and that you have made it through 2 sederim without gaining over 10 pound!

Now that we are almost half way through Passover, our houses are clean and our stomachs are full let talk a little bit about what is the difference between Passover in Israel and outside of it!

First – we only have one Seder dinner at the beginning of the holiday, and one Seder at the end, so we only have to sit through the Haggadah once. With that said, the Seder is the biggest holiday dinner of the year! Is it always the best (because people get creative with food when you can bake anything), and the entire family gets together to celebrate it (even if they do not live in the same city!)

Second, it is super easy to keep kosher in Israel – most restaurants turn over its kitchen for Passover and wherever you go you simply cannot get away from kosher for Passover food and Matzah (I tried! You just cannot do it!), the stores only sell kosher for Passover food and you have to try hard to *not* keep kosher.

Third, it is the longest vacation people can take off work and no one frowns upon it! Why you ask? Because the education system (kindergartens to high school) has 2 weeks off! 2! That is the longest vacation other than summer vacation! So a lot of people choose to travel during that time of the year, mostly inside the borders of Israel – it’s spring time and everything blossoms and it’s pretty amazing to watch, it’s the perfect weather to hike in the dessert and up north – so really no matter where you go hiking is amazing! Sometimes people do leave Israel during their Passover vacation (I spent several Passovers in the states!) it is one of the busiest times of the year in the one and only Ben Gurion airport, ticket prices are sky high – but it is still a good time of year to travel (Cherry blossoms anyone?)

At the end of the week of Passover, it’s the time where every Israeli is suddenly best friends with their Moroccan of half Moroccan or any relations to Moroccan that they can find! Why? Well the answer is very simple – Mimouna! It’s the day after the second holiday (second Seder of the second holiday here in the united states), where Moroccan families open their home to family and friends and even strangers to celebrate, one of the main costumes of the holiday is leaving the door open as long as the people living in the house are there and awake, these celebrations can last the whole night! If you want to celebrate the Mimouna, contact me! I have just the celebration for you!

I hope your Passover continues to be fun and relaxing!

See you in 2 weeks after the holiday for some more Israeli fun!

Until next time…

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