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Ten Ways to Bring Human Rights to Your Seder

1. Place a tomato on your seder plate in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, agricultural workers who are eradicating slavery from the Florida tomato fields.

2. Ask each guest to bring an object or photo that symbolizes a contemporary human rights struggle. Place these on a second seder plate, and have each guest talk about what s/he brought.

3. Stage an improvisational skit in which Moses, Miriam, and other characters from the Exodus story encounter a contemporary human rights issue.

4. Assign each guest one section of the seder, and have guests bring a recent newspaper article or photo that connects this part of the seder to a contemporary issue.

5. Learn about how contemporary slaves may have contributed to the items on your seder table. See www.truah.org/slavery or www.slaveryfootprint.org for more. Include in your seder at least one fair trade item. See www.fairtradejudaica.org for ideas.

6. After reciting the Ten Plagues, ask each guest to spill a drop of wine while mentioning a contemporary “plague”—a human rights challenge of today.

7. During Hallel, the section of praise after the meal, read selections from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and ask guests to reflect on why they are grateful to have these rights in their own lives.

8. As an afikoman prize, give a donation certificate to a human rights organization—or ask the winner to choose where s/he would like you to donate. See www.truah.org/afikoman for information on ordering a certificate for a donation to T’ruah.

9. Before singing “L’shana Haba’ah BiY’rushalayim” “Next year in Jerusalem,” ask each guest to offer a blessing or a hope for ensuring that Israel becomes a model for human rights.

10. Close the seder by asking each guest to commit to one way in which s/he will work for human rights this year.


Republished with permission from T’ruah:The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights

T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights is an organization of rabbis from all streams of Judaism that acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people. Human Rights Shabbat, T’ruah’s annual celebration of Jewish values and universal human rights, is celebrated by more than 130 Jewish communities around the globe.

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