This year’s Passover, the annual Jewish holiday, will offer families the chance to reflect on the hardships of the previous year. It also prioritizes looking with hope to the future.
Read MoreWhen the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt, God sent ten plagues to trouble Pharaoh, each one more horrible than the last. The last plague was the worst of all — a disease that felled the firstborn of every family, except in Jewish families who marked their door with lamb’s blood. This year, many Jews will rewrite the Passover story from the Book of Exodus to include an eleventh plague — COVID-19.
Read MorePassover seders are often cherished family memories. But this will be remembered as the year when a public health crisis prevented generations of family from gathering together, when those who did not travel watched on a computer screen as the story of the exodus from Egypt was retold.
Read MoreEvery six months, before Passover in April and the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah in September, thousands of written prayers are picked out from the crevices of the wall to make way for new ones. The old notes are buried.
Read MoreA Mexican Catholic order is creating a $100 million pilgrimage retreat in Israel for Mary Magdalene devotees, with a special emphasis on feminism in the church. A biopic film on Jesus’s female follower will be released April 12 in the U.S.
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