Gilles Darmon does not remember having felt such a sense of oppressive distress before on the eve of the Passover holiday (April 14-22). For years, the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Latet (meaning ''to give'' in Hebrew) he heads gears up to provide food to the needy. Every year, thousands of his volunteers are deployed around the country to distribute food parcels to the poor, enabling them to celebrate the Seder with some amount of dignity. This year as well, Darmon supervised the food distribution operation. He was stunned to find out the extent to which the circle of poverty has widened among Israeli families, families that do not have the means to conduct the traditional Passover Seder meal.
Passover is a quintessential Jewish holiday that assembles Israelis in a family-based festival atmosphere. Despite its religious nature, Passover remains the most popular holiday among the public. Secular Jews, like their religious counterparts, customarily gather around the table to celebrate the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their emancipation from slavery. Many of them connect the biblical story to current-day events and view the exodus from Egypt as a historical moral that guides the Jewish people to this very day.
