By Debbie Schlussel
To all of my friends and readers, thank you for the many e-cards and best wishes as the Jewish holiday of Passover approaches.
Passover starts Saturday Night, and therefore, I will be out of blog commission until Monday Night, though I will probably have some things for my webmaster to put up until then, in my absence from the Net.
In the meantime, to my Jewish friends and readers, I wish you a Happy Passover.
To my non-Jewish friends and readers, here’s a little primer–from a past year’s post–on the eight-day holiday in which we Jews celebrate our freedom from slavery in Egypt:

For the first two nights [beginning Saturday Night], we have a special ceremonial dinner, called a “Seder,” which means “order.” We eat several foods to symbolize the bitterness and sadness of slavery and the joy of freedom from it.

The entire holiday is eight days. Throughout, we do not eat leavened bread and various other products containing ingredients that traditionally could be used for flour. For instance, no rice, corn, or certain beans and vegetables, nothing containing corn syrup, etc. Instead, we eat a flat, cracker-like bread called “matzoh,” which symbolizes the bread of oppression, as well as the fact that the Jews–escaping slavery and ultimately entering Israel (40 years later)–did not have time to have their bread raise, as they left for the desert with it on their backs. It is not a holiday for low-carbers.
The holiday is also nicknamed in Hebrew “Z’man Cherutaynu,” which means the “Time of Our Freedom.” It is especially auspicious that, as Islamists increase in their power and influence throughout the world–and wish to assert it on the rest of us (Jew and non-Jew alike)–we celebrate the freedom of the Jews (and Jesus’ ancestors, too) from those who preceded the Islamists in Egypt.
The Jews survived their enslavers in Egypt [who did not, themselves survive–they are not the modern-day pan-Arabist Egyptians]. And G-d-willing, we will all survive the Islamists worldwide, including on our American shores and far within them. If only we have the will. The Jews had the will. They wandered in the desert for 40 years.
Does America–do Westerners who do not want our world to become greater Islamia–have the will?
Will our descendants be able to celebrate a “Passover” of freedom from the slavery of Islam? We shall see. But right now, it doesn’t look good. There are far too many “Abdullahs” (the name means slave of Allah) coming to our shores and being born within them.

There is so much more to the holiday, but that is the “Debbie’s Notes” version. It is a great educational experience for both kids AND adults. For more details read about it here, here, and here.

Again, the celebratin of Passover is is especially meaningful at this time, as Islamists from Egypt and around greater Arabia want to do us harm and re-enslave not just Jews but Christians, non-believers, and anyone who is not as extreme as they are.
We must celebrate our freedom while we still have it. And work to keep it.