Pesach at Beth Israel

Passover Project 2025

Beth Israel has had a long tradition of ensuring that all members have a place to go during Passover for the first and second Seders.

Are you having a Seder and have room at your table for guests?
Are you looking for somewhere to go for one or both of the Seders?
Are you all set with your arrangements and don't need any assistance?

Please click here and fill out the form so we can help match those who need a place to go for a Seder with those who have space at their table. If you have any questions, please contact Barb McAnelly at barbm@bethisrael-aa.org.

Please submit your answers by Thursday, April 2 to ensure we have time to place everyone.

Passover Resources

Selling Your Chameitz
To sell your chameitz to Rabbi Caine, click here.

Rabbinical Assembly Pesah Guide
This guide is intended to help families maintain a kosher for Pesah home in accordance with the principles of Conservative Judaism and its understanding of Jewish law. Click here

Instructions for Bedikat/Biur Chameitz
Click here for instructions for Bedikat/Biur Chameitz, the afikomen-like search for chameitz and the nullification declaration.

Kashering Your Kitchen
Click here for a helpful video

Kitniyot (Beans, Rice, Soy, and Legumes)
Chameitz (leavened grains) is any product made with any amount of wheat, barley, oats, rye, spelt, or their derivatives, that is not matzah (and so has possibly leavened). The custom of avoiding rice, beans, nuts, corn, and soy (kitniyot) is based on notions of their flour leavening (which they do not) and concerns of cross contamination with forbidden grains in the marketplace. The Conservative Movement has ruled, as have most halakhic codes through the centuries, that such concerns are unjustified, and so the custom has no basis, but that Ashkenazim may preserve these customs if they choose to out of reverence for their family traditions. Otherwise, rice, beans, nuts, corn, and soy are kosher for passover without a passover heksher and may be eaten during Passover as long as they are purchased before Passover so any accidental chameitz is nullified during the Bedikat/Biur Chameitz ceremony on Erev Pesach. (In halakhic language; the nullification of 1/60 contamination applies before Pesach but not during.) In such a case, it is essential one recite the nullification declaration on the morning before the seder which can be found here. For a summary of the relevant sources and reasoning on the matter, click here for a source sheet compiled by Rabbi Caine.

JTS's 5785 Passover Reader
As you prepare for Passover, JTS invites you to explore The Seder's Call: Moving Beyond the Table, a collection of thought-provoking essays to deepen your holiday experience. This year's edition examines the Seder not just as a retelling of the Exodus, but as a call to reflection and action. How do its themes of liberation and responsibility shape our commitments today? Click here for the reader.

Hadar Passover Resources
Enchance your Passover experience with halakhic guides, Torah insights, and fun activities from Hadar. Click here.

Passover Resources from Keshet
Passover is a holiday of liberation, storytelling, gathering, and envisioning the world as it should be. Click here for haggadah inserts, readings, and reflections to enhance your Passover celebrations and engage with Keshet's ongoing work for LGBTQ liberation.

Downloadable Haggadot
Rabbinical Assembly's Feast of Freedom Haggadah
Mission from Moses Role Play Haggadah
Passover Meditation Guide Haggadah
The LGBTQ+ Seder Haggadah
The HIAS Haggadah
In Every Generation from the Hartman Institute
Justice & Redemption Seder from Truah
Mental Health Seder Plate
The Coloring Book Haggadah
Rav Nadav's First Seder Haggadah
Rav Nadav's Folk Musical Second Seder
Create your own at haggadot.com

Equal Exchange: Fair Trade Kosher for Passover Chocolate
The gift of freedom bestows upon us the obligation to work for the liberation of all people. Extend freedom by purchasing chocolate that foes not depend on forced and child labor. Click here.