Windsor's Jewish community celebrates Passover together, apart

As COVID-19 restrictions hit full force during the Jewish holiday of Passover - families and communities are turning to virtual spaces to be together on what is supposed to be a joyful holiday.

"I think some people are sad not to be having the big family dinner that they normally have and it might be a lonely time for some people as it is for everyone while we're all in quarantine and sheltering in place," Jay Katz of the Windsor Jewish Community Centre said.

"But I think people doubly appreciate their ability to have seders and live in a society where we have the freedom to choose to shelter in placeand they are celebrating their seders in that vein."

The holiday service is meant to be spent around a dinner table with family, friends and others reading the story of Exodus which is about the Jews suffering in slavery in Egypt and their eventual escape from it. But it is also about discussing the story and how it may have relevance in today's world.

"Even when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, they never changed their names, they still remained with their Hebrew names, they still believed in God, they still had that faith and think that's what kept them going," Rabbi Sholom Galeprinof Windsor's Chabad Jewish Centresaid.

"What's going to get us through today... is the idea that we have to have faith, we have to believe in something that's going to ground us and connect us because if we don't what do we have?"

Zoom seders

The Beth El congregationis taking their communal seders, the term for the traditional feast and service, online. They hosted one on Wednesday evening and will be hosting another on Thursday.

"We're continuing to act and teach and lean and be together just in ways that we're not used to quite yet,"Rabbi Lynn Goldstein said.

"We're all in the process of learning all of these new ways of communicating."

She said that she's kept in constant contact with her members as communal gatherings have not been possible and they have been helping each other in whatever ways they could through this time.

"I think that the connections are really important and the ways we are learning more and more about each other are going to bring us ever closer."

Galeprin, like Goldstein,delivered Matzah, a traditional kind of unleavened breadfrom Israel, to his members in preparation for the holiday.He said even though things are tough, Jews are commandedto be joyful on this holiday even if they find themselves alone to celebrate.

"Try to do the best you can, nobody's watching you," Galeprin said. "Sing at the top of your lungs."