CHRISTIAN SEDER

In a short while it will be Passover, with which Easter sometimes somewhat overlaps. And that of course means that well-meaning Christians AND some unwell anti-Semites will host 'Christian Seders'. Which aren't really seders, but tasteless exercises in both cancel culture and cultural appropriation no matter how soft and fluffy they are. However, a close friend will be attending a non-Jewish Passover. Which seems to involve little that could be even remotely regarded as either cancellation or appropriation.


"Hey guys, how 'bout y'all come over on the evening which marks the beginning of Passover, which is a Jewish thing and immensely important in the history of the Jewish people, and seeing as none of us are Jewish (except for so-and-so, whose family couldn't celebrate Jewish stuff in Soviet Russia), we will mark it as nicely coinciding with and sort of in recognition of Passover, but we're going to have Filippino food and probably lots of wine. And whiskey."


You know, that sounds pretty good.

As a means of not being totally insensitive, an unstructured dinner party with no ideological/theological/new age bs elements whatsoever sounds all right.

If there has to be something Jewish at a non-Jewish get-together for the first night of Pesach, maybe some gefilte fish. And while I like gefilte fish, many people are on the fence about it, and have strong or mixed feelings about the chrein that goes with it.
There is no spiritual significance to gefilte fish.

Focusing on the bread substance however skates too close to dangerous territory. Breaking bread is a Middle-Eastern metaphor interjected into everybody else's culture by religion.
A bunch of non-Jews sitting around discussing the spiritual significance of bread on the first or second night of Passover, especially if they come from a Christian background, is, at the very least, quite distasteful.



By the way: Passover (Pesach) as we now know it, with the observances which are now customary, didn't exist at the time when Christ allegedly was around. That's part of rabbinic Judaism, which developed over several centuries largely in response to Christian and Roman attempts to destroy the Jewish people. Passover is a repitition of the realization of Jewish nationhood, commemorating a fundamental shared nationforming, and what it means to be Jewish. A passover seder which isn't Jewish ab initio therefore can not be a passover seder. The narrative has clearly defined purposes and content, anything else is immaterial shiznit. Enjoy your meal.




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