About 100 people gathered Monday evening on the lawn of the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting House for a Passover Seder hosted by the University of Michigan chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace. The event, held on the third night of the eight-day Jewish holiday, blended traditional ritual with political messaging surrounding Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Participants wrapped in keffiyehs sat around tables and on picnic blankets arranged across the lawn. A line of posters and Palestinian flags along Hill Street read, “This is what anti-Zionist Jewish community looks like.”
Wayne State student Ruby Kellman, JVP member, emphasized the importance of interpreting Jewish tradition while also considering modern-day context in an interview with The Michigan Daily.
“Passover is about the continued tradition of discussing our history critically so that we understand the implications and the role of our history in our current day place as Jews,” Kellman said. “I’m really glad that I’m able to find a place to celebrate my Judaism without having to feel ostracized for not supporting a genocide.”
The Monday night gathering was just one of many Seders organized by JVP across the United States as part of its “Liberation Seders” campaign for Passover. Passover, which lasts for eight days, commemorates the Israelites’ escape from slavery in Egypt and their journey toward the land of Israel, as described in the Torah. The campaign aims to reinterpret the themes of the holiday, including freedom from bondage and collective liberation, in light of the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza.
The sedar was hosted across the street of Michigan Hillel as they hosted their own celebrations for the holiday. In an interview with The Daily, LSA freshman Justin Baltuch, a Michigan Hillel member, said he was hurt by the timing and location of the protest.
“For me as a Jewish student here, it’s pretty disrespectful given that it’s Passover, which should be a time for Jewish people to come together to celebrate the holiday” Baltuch said. “It’s just hurtful that people in our own community are actively calling for the demise of our own religion. Everybody in this country has a right to protest. You can’t do anything about that. They’re obviously trying to garner our attention, but them being on the front lawn — it’s intentional.”
University alum Eli Hubbel explained why they chose to attend the Liberation Seder, emphasizing the importance of community-building events like this one.
“Passover for me, at least, is kind of like reflecting on oppression and affliction and like what that can teach us about right now; kind of how that’s repeated itself in different ways,” Hubbel said. “(I’m here) to find Jewish community specifically, Jewish community that reflects my values. I’m an anti-Zionist Jew, and that’s important to me. And I just, at this point, don’t really want to be in any space that isn’t explicitly anti-Zionist.”
While police liaisons stood quietly at the periphery monitoring the crowd, several passersby on Hill Street yelled insults or laughed, flipping off participants as they drove by.
During the ritual reading of the ten plagues, speakers presented a new list they called the “spiritual plagues of genocidal Zionism.” A JVP member read from their haggadah to the crowd while encouraging the group to “anoint your feet and feel the ground.”
Zelda Manela, JVP Detroit member, spoke on Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, specifically the flour massacre in 2024, while reflecting on the meaning of matzah, a traditional Jewish bread eaten during Passover to symbolize the Israelites’ escape from Egypt.
“When I see a piece of Matzah, I think of the flour massacre on (Feb.) 29, 2024, where over 118 lives were lost and more than 700 individuals were injured while desperately searching for food after months of imposed starvation,” Manela said. “The magnitude of this violence with a simple act of seeking flour that led to death reverberates in my body. But even in the face of starvation and seemingly insurmountable violence, Palestinian people resist against their oppressor.”
Another JVP member, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, further criticized the University’s Jewish institutions including Michigan Hillel in an interview with The Daily.
“The Michigan Hillel is complicit in supporting the Israeli apartheid regime, and the Jewish community is not a monolith here,” the member said. “It’s a diversity of opinions, and there’s a very strong contingent of anti-Zionism on this campus, and anti-Zionist Jewish community. My grandchildren shouldn’t have to have marshals and police liaisons to be able to practice their faith in public, but we do because we’re afraid of people in our own community. We’re afraid of what Zionists will do to us.”
The JVP member further addressed what they described as a common narrative framing Jewish and Palestinian identities as inherently incompatible.
“There’s this narrative that they have over there Hillel and other Zionist institutions around America, that it’s complicated,” JVP said. “They don’t like us and you don’t like them. It’s this weird Jewish-Arab sort of struggle thing. It’s a falsity. It’s not real. The only way to sort of build this solidarity is through a commitment to anti-Zionism. It’s through a commitment to building a future based on equality.”
Daily Senior News Editor Emma Spring can be reached at sprinemm@umich.edu.
