Seder Plate #2: Making Passover Relevant To Today

In addition to the traditional seder plate, many people and communities have started adding other symbolic items to remind us of communities that are still enslaved today. On this second seder plate, you will find non-traditional items representative of the various issues of our time.

The orange represents the fruitfulness that is added when those under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella are fully included in our community.

The tomato represents migrant works who are vastly underpaid (if paid at all) and required to be away from their families for months on end in order to make a living.

The olive is representative of the olive branch. The olive branch is a well known signal of peace and is used to display our prayer for peace in the Middle East.

Fair trade chocolate or coffee is included to remind us of child slavory that still exists around the world and in many of the comapnies we use every day.

Bananas are used to represent the refugee crisis that is still going on today. In 2015 a picture of two Syrian children washed up on the shore went viral. It was later leard that the boys loved bananas and their father would bring them home every day as a treat to remind them of the sweetness of life. We use bananas to represent this story and the many other story of refugees all over the world.

 For many years and in many countries, the various items on the seder plate were not available due to famine in the land. At these times, Jews around the world used raw potatoes to symbolize our story. We include potato on this special seder plate to represent famines that are still occuring all over the world.


haggadah Section: Introduction