Passover apart, a people still together

This year, like many others, as Israel confronts an existential threat posed by the Iranian regime and ballistic rockets fill the skies of the Middle East, I will not be sitting around the Passover table with my family in Israel. I am not alone in that. Across Israel, the United Kingdom, and around the world, Jewish families are separated, yet preparing to mark the same festival of freedom and our shared historical path.

Passover is not just a historical commemoration. It is a living reminder of who we are, how we got here, and what it takes for us to remain free and secure.

Even in the shadow of ongoing conflict, as we prepare to celebrate here in London, we are reminded why we are still fighting and why we are still here.

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There is an old Jewish joke around that is told around the seder table: They tried to kill us; we survived; let’s eat. It captures something essential about our story. Generation after generation, despite those who sought to destroy us, we have endured and defended our right to exist.

But this year, the story feels closer than usual.

Beyond Operation Rising Lion, which will reshape the region and will bring stability and prosperity, there is another front, one much closer to home for Jews in the diaspora. It is the battle over the safety, legitimacy, and future of Jewish life outside Israel.

In the United Kingdom, the rise in antisemitic incidents is deeply alarming. Attacks against individuals, synagogues, and even emergency services are no longer fabricated or imaginary events. At the same time, we are seeing growing efforts to redefine Zionism, the movement for Jewish self-determination, as something illegitimate or even racist.

This is not just wrong. It is a denial of a fundamental right.

Zionism is the modern expression of an ancient idea: that the Jewish people have the right to determine their own future in their ancestral homeland. To frame that as racism is to hold Jews to a standard not applied to any other people.

And this is where the message of Passover becomes urgent.

The Exodus was not just about escaping oppression; it was about becoming a people capable of shaping their own destiny. That journey, famously, did not end overnight. It took forty years in the desert before the Israelites reached the Promised Land.

But not every person seeking freedom today should have to wait that long.

As the world confronts the reality of the Iranian regime, a regime that poses a direct threat not only to Israel but also to regional and global stability, we must also remember the Iranian people themselves. For years, they have lived under repression, denied basic freedoms, and been silenced when they dared to demand change.

And yet, they have shown extraordinary courage.

If there is one lesson Passover offers the world, it is that liberation from tyranny is possible and that it should not take generations to achieve. The Iranian people, like the Israelites before them, deserve the chance to determine their own future. They deserve freedom not on some distant horizon but in their lifetime.

A freer Iran would not only transform the lives of its people; it would also remove one of the most persistent sources of instability and violence in the world today. It would make the Middle East, and indeed countries like the United Kingdom, safer and more secure.

Passover also invites another reflection: it is about us.

The story of the Exodus reminds us that survival was never an individual effort. The Israelites left Egypt as one people, bound by a shared fate. Their strength came from unity.

That lesson feels especially relevant now.

If we, as a people, are not there for one another, no one else will be. Jewish history has shown this time and again. Solidarity is not a luxury; it is a necessity.

Across the UK, Jewish communities are standing together, supporting one another, rebuilding, and refusing to be intimidated. There are those who would prefer that we were not here, who would seek to silence us or redefine us out of existence. But we will not accept that.

As we gather this Passover, whether with family or from afar, we retell a story that is both ancient and immediate. A story of oppression, resilience, and, ultimately, freedom.

But above all, it is a story about peoplehood.

Not just faith. Not just survival.

But the understanding that our future, like our past, depends on one simple truth: we have each other.

• Daniela Grudsky Ekstein is the Chargé d’affaires at the Israeli Embassy to the UK