Empty chairs, mirrors and pomegranates: How Jews are bringing the Israel-Hamas war to their seder tables this Passover

(JTA) — As Jews around the world read the haggadah at their seder tables every year, they encounter a passage instructing them to see themselves as if they personally left Egypt. This year, some of them will also have on their seder tables a symbol of the perseverance of women traumatized in captivity.

In light of testimony that Israeli women have suffered rape and sexual assault at the hands of Hamas, Rabbanit Leah Sarna is encouraging seder participants to connect with the Israelite women of long ago by putting a mirror on their tables.

Those women, according to Jewish tradition, used mirrors in the course of reempowering themselves after facing sexual trauma — a way, Sarna wrote in the Jewish publication Lehrhaus, of “fighting to create Jewish babies” and reclaiming their autonomy.

“Recall the historic suffering and endurance of Jewish women past and present, and let us hope and pray that that same healing will someday be found by our brothers — and especially sisters — in Gaza being tortured today,” Sarna wrote.

https://www.jta.org/2024/04/17/religion/empty-chairs-mirrors-and-pomegranates-how-jews-are-bringing-the-israel-hamas-war-to-their-seder-tables-this-passover