Passover in Times of Corona

Call for Collection Items: We are looking for videos, photographs, and objects for our collection

Passover 5780 (2020) was the first Jewish holiday that had to be celebrated under the conditions of coronavirus.

To document these unusual circumstances for the future, the Jewish Museum Berlin put out a call for photographs, videos, and other materials from Passover during the Covid-19 pandemic.

We would like to ask once again for you to contribute objects of any kind to our expanding Covid collection.

How have you experienced the past year?
How did you confront the challenges of these times in your household or your community?
How did you approach holidays?
And what made your second Covid-era seder different from the last one?

We would like to thank everyone who responded so far and we continue to welcome further submissions.

Please email your contribution to zeitgeschichte@jmberlin.de. We are also happy to answer any questions at that email address.

Glimpses of the Submissions So Far

Two men stand in front of a grocery store with an orange outer wall and each hold a moving box in their hands. — The “Berlin Tisch” project originally wanted to connect as many guests and hosts as possible for Passover seders. Because of the new coronavirus, their concept changed: “Nearly 120 households signed up for a Passover parcel from Berlin Tisch. A motivated team jumped into action and distributed haggadahs, matzah, charoset, and maror throughout the city – without any personal contact with the people who ordered it, of course, but with plenty of personal dedication. This helped many people celebrate Passover at home without having to travel around the city themselves.” – Nina Peretz; photo: Freunde der Synagoge Fraenkelufer e. V., 2020

The “Berlin Tisch” project originally wanted to connect as many guests and hosts as possible for Passover seders. Because of the new coronavirus, their concept changed: “Nearly 120 households signed up for a Passover parcel from Berlin Tisch. A motivated team jumped into action and distributed haggadahs, matzah, charoset, and maror throughout the city – without any personal contact with the people who ordered it, of course, but with plenty of personal dedication. This helped many people celebrate Passover at home without having to travel around the city themselves.” – Nina Peretz; photo: Freunde der Synagoge Fraenkelufer e. V., 2020

Together with a friend, Ruth Zeifert and her daughters Rahel and Golde filmed a video about the ten plagues. They took the day off from homeschooling, turned the kitchen table into an arts-and-crafts station, painted the ten plagues, wrote a script, and recorded the narration: “It was terribly exciting and very pleasant and meaningful.” (video from 2020)