CANCELED: CJH-Fordham Series in Jewish-Christian Relations: ‘Passover Seders and Jewish-Christian Engagement in Postwar America’

Passover is often described as the quintessential domestic Jewish holiday, celebrated by more American Jews than other religious ritual. Since the mid-20th century, however, seders have also been reinterpreted as auspicious sites for Jewish-Christian engagement.

While early modern European Christian writings about Jews often depicted the seder as a mysterious, secretive Jewish domestic ritual with sinister associations with murder and blood libel, contemporary American engagements with Passover have radically altered this depiction, moving the seder out of a private Jewish realm and reconceiving it as an opportunity for connection between Jews and Christians through the celebration of a ritual that an increasing number of Christians have come to regard as an important part of their own heritage.

This talk will examine some of the ways American Jews and Christians have reimagined their engagement with the Passover seder, both together and separately, and to consider the ways that Jewish texts and practices associated with Passover have been redefined and reinterpreted in order to serve new purposes and communities. An exploration of these different approaches to the seder can perhaps offer us a window into the multiple and shifting dynamics of Jewish-Christian relations in the post-World War II United States.