Dan Levin reflects on hosting a Passover seder in Beijing:
China is hardly the only country whose people are struggling for political and personal freedom, but at Passover, it looms far larger than other countries with poor human-rights records because Jews, like everyone else, profit from and pay for those abuses. Just check your stocks. It would be easy for Jews to boycott Zimbabwe or Iran or North Korea as a protest. But China? Impossible. It is inextricably bound to the daily lives of American Jews. It’s the United States’ largest trading partner, and nearly everything American Jews buy is made by Chinese workers, from cell phones and laptops to the pans we use to cook our Seder meals and the tables around which we recline. China’s lack of freedom casts a shadow across every Seder.
Daniel Serwer focuses his thoughts on Syria:
I’ll pray for the Syrians at Seder tonight, as I trust many Jews around the world will do. Not because I think praying will do the Syrians any good, but because the parallel between today’s Syrians and our own liberation narrative should inform our sensibilities. The people of Syria are seeking the freedom that Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans and Yemenis have all started to enjoy, even if they are still at the beginning of their journeys through the wilderness. I hope the Syrians catch up soon. The most frequent injunction in the Old Testament is to treat a stranger like ourselves.
The Dish 