On the Street and in the ‘shuk,’ Israelis Prepare for Passover

Carrying bags brimming with meat, produce and oven cleaner, Jerusalemites were in the final throes of their Passover preparations Thursday.

The streets and stores were filled with shoppers in search of affordable tomatoes or a new pair of shoes for the kids.

While some people began Passover preparations right after Purim, most seemed to have waited until this week to begin house cleaning. Most clotheslines were full, and many windows were thrown wide open to give blankets and pillows an airing.

Young children, on vacation for two weeks, filled the parks and playgrounds, while their older siblings took advantage of the break to hike around the country. For some kids, it was not all fun and games, however. Several were spotted hosing down the family car or sweeping the stairs free of “chametz.”

This week, scores of college and yeshiva students, also on holiday vacation, took to cleaning houses, sometimes for money, sometimes not. Hundreds of soldiers and youth group members volunteered to help elderly city residents with their Passover cleaning.

Shoppers jammed the stalls at Machaneh Yehuda, the city’s open-air market, despite the less-than-favorable prices on some produce.

A combination of stormy winter weather and a bit of holiday price-gouging inflated the price of cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries and cauliflower. Still, compared to the price of food at most neighborhood supermarkets, the “shuk” was a bargain-hunter’s delight.

At a mini-supermarket in the German Colony neighborhood, Miri Mitchell was shopping for pita bread. “My family doesn’t like matzah,” she explained, “and since we’re not religious, I’ll put some in the freezer for the week.” Municipal laws prohibit the sale of bread during Passover.

But Mitchell, like virtually all Israelis, will attend a seder. “To me, the Pesach story is important from a historical standpoint,” she said. “It stresses freedom and our release from bondage. A seder is a part of Israeli life.”

To assist new immigrants during their first Israeli seder, the Absorption Ministry distributed thousands of Haggadahs in Russian and Amharic.

Through newspaper ads, and with the help of the various immigrant advocacy organizations, the ministry also invited the newcomers to seders being held around the country. Ads in the Hebrew and English press also urged Israelis “to invite a new immigrant family home for seder.”

Many veteran Israelis are taking up the challenge, while others are themselves thankful to be invited out for the event.

At Burger Ranch, a fast-food hamburger restaurant near the city center, Atara Grodzinski sat with her two children and contemplated the cleaning still ahead of her.

“I’ve cleaned out the ‘chametz,’ but I still have to change over the dishes,” she said. “All I can say is, thank goodness I’m not making the seder this year.”