10 Modern Plagues - By Alan Breslauer

Leader:

God brought ten plagues upon the Egyptians to persuade Pharaoh to free the Israelites’ from slavery. Tonight we read ten modern plagues inflicting Americans and people around the world. As we read each plague we remove a drop of wine from our glasses to symbolize our anguish at the suffering these plagues have caused.

Recite Together:

  • Poverty. Despite being the wealthiest country the planet has ever seen, more than 45 million Americans live below the poverty line.
  • Hunger. One in four children living in households in the United States struggle against hunger.
  • Homelessness. 1.5 million people are homeless at some point in any given year.
  • Mass Incarceration. Nearly 7 million people, mostly men, were under correctional supervision in 2015.
  • Discrimination. Racism, Islamophobia and anti-semitism all spiked in 2016 as hatred spread across the planet.
  • Sexual Assault. Nearly 1 out of every 5 women in the U.S. has been the victim of an rape or attempted rape. Nearly 1 in 4 women have been beaten by an intimate partner.
  • Gun Violence. Guns kill 33,000 Americans annually.
  • War. More than 100,000 people died in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in 2016. Eleven other countries had between 1,400 and 10,000 deaths due to armed conflict.
  • Refugee Crisis. In 2015 the number of displaced people reached the highest level ever recorded, surpassing WWII. More than 65 million people - or one out of every 113 people on Earth - were displaced.
  • Climate Change. Rising global temperatures pose a fundamental threat to all people and species on the planet.

haggadah Section: -- Ten Plagues