As the United States and Israel continue the war which might free the Iranian people from a tyrannical regime, the yearning of the people of Israel for positive relations with the Iranian people has been expressed across Israeli society. On Jan 6, 2026, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated “We in Israel identify with the struggle of the Iranian people and their aspiration to liberty and justice.” And on Purim, a few days into the conflict, a viral photo depicted a costumed reveler dressed as an El Al worker, holding an airline ticket for direct flights from Tel Aviv to Tehran.
In this unique historical moment, then, it is particularly apt to explore the possible impact Iranian culture has had on the upcoming Jewish holiday of Passover.
The traditional answer to many of the curious customs at the Passover Seder tends to be, per the Babylonian Talmud’s tractate Pesachim, “so that the children will ask.” In other words, certain practices, according to the ancient Babylonian sages who produced the Talmud, have no rational reason that they could articulate. Conventionally, they are thought to have emerged from folk practices at the time, simply meant to keep kids alert and engaged over the lengthy evening.
To Tel Aviv University’s Esther Shkalim, born in Tehran, however, many of these rituals might very well be an imitation of, or a response to, an ancient Iranian holiday.
Though Purim is often the Jewish festival most associated with the Persian Empire — due to the Scroll of Esther’s historical setting — Shkalim sees the 2,500-year-old Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, specifically its holiday of Nowruz, as central to understanding some of Pesach’s practices.
Though Purim is often the Jewish festival most associated with the Persian Empire — due to the Scroll of Esther’s historical setting — Shkalim sees the 2,500-year-old Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, specifically its holiday of Nowruz, as central to understanding some of Pesach’s practices.
Celebrations of Nowruz (“New Day”) began around 550 B.C.E. during the Achaemenid Empire founded by Cyrus the Great, thought to be based on the belief that a mythical Persian king soared across the skies in a jeweled chariot on the first day of spring. Across modern day Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and other countries with Persian cultural influence, the holiday, signaling the arrival of the new year, is still celebrated with rituals focusing on the themes of nature, rebirth, new beginnings and new relationships.
In her Hebrew book “Why is This Night Really Different? Influences from the Ancient Persian New Year on Passover and Haggadah Customs in Jewish Communities,” Shkalim notes numerous similarities between Nowruz and Passover.
In advance of Nowruz, there is the Khāne-takānī, “shaking the house,” which is meant to purify one’s home with cleanliness and keep out evil. Iranians wash their carpets, clean their yards and attics and even paint their houses. In March of 2025, Home and Gardens ran a story titled “I’m Persian and the 13 Days of Cleaning I Always Do to Mark Nowruz – the First Day of Spring and Iranian New Year – Will Spruce Up Your House in No Time.” The author of the essay described how the Persian festival is “a sentimental holiday, and celebrates the rebirth of nature, as the vernal equinox vernix – the astronomical arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere – brings with it a brand new time of growth and hope.”
This no doubt resonates among Jews, who spend days diligently cleaning every nook and cranny of their house to make sure there is no bread in it before Pesach, a means of demonstrating our desire to defeat the arrogance symbolized by rising dough in advance enjoying Passover’s redemptive spiritual emphasis.
Another common pre-Nowruz ritual involves leaping over fire to cleanse the past year’s negativity. Perhaps, Shkalim suggests, the Babylonian sages living under the control of the Persian Empire, seeing the affinity for flames among their neighbors, decided the now-common practice that chametz should be burned, though the Mishnah had originally offered three options for its removal on Passover eve (“Rabbi Judah says: there is no removal of chametz except by burning; But the sages say: he may also crumble it and throw it to the wind or cast it into the sea.”)
Additionally, part of this fire-leaping ritual, held on the last Wednesday of the Persian year, involves saying the phrase “your redness for my paleness,” an expression of the desire to rid one’s self of illness, weakness and bad spirits. Shkalim suggests that this is paralleled by the dipping of our fingers into the cup of wine during the enumeration of the Ten Plagues that befell the Egyptians. Though modern explanations have posited that this is an expression of sympathy for our defeated enemies, the practice has actually stood for centuries as a bodily expression of the desire to keep the plagues away from us and ensure God’s wrath falls upon our enemies. Thus Iranian Jews have a custom to keep strictly quiet during this somber act. Jews in Azerbaijan take it a step further and smack their legs at the mention of each plague, to signify that God should protect them and strike our enemies. In Iraq and Afghanistan, when Jews lived there, the drops would be spilled out next to the house of a contemporary antagonist of the Jewish people. In Morocco, those at the Seder don’t even look at the person doing the dipping, and in Tunisia, they would cry out “God save us [from these plagues]!”
During Nowruz itself, families gather around a ceremonial table which displays seven symbolic foods which all start with the Persian letter “sīn.” Apple, or seeb, represents health and beauty; garlic, or seer, stands for protection and medicine; vinegar, or serkeh, represents patience and longevity; sumac, or somāq, stands for the sunrise and new beginnings; sprouts (wheat, lentil, barley), or sabzeh, represent growth and rebirth; dried oleaster fruit (silverberry), or senjed, stands for love and wisdom; and sweet pudding or samanu, represents strength and prosperity. Depending on the celebrants’ religious affiliation, excerpts from the Quran, Bible, Avesta or even poetry books of renowned Persian poets are placed on the table. Jews, of course, gather around the dinner table and discuss the symbolic foods on the Seder plate while reading the Haggadah, pointing to the matzah and maror and lamenting that we don’t currently have the opportunity to offer a paschal sacrifice in the Temple.
The book also argues that the sweet vegetables on the Nowruz table influenced the now common practice for Jews to eat lettuce as maror, the supposedly bitter herb, despite it not actually tasting bitter. The Babylonian Talmud had difficulty understanding this practice which was already common to its time, leading it to suggest the food was chosen due to the Hebrew words for lettuce, chassa, resembling the word for “mercy,” as in the mercy God had on the Israelites leading Him to liberate them from Egypt.
The sabzeh sprouts on the Nowruz table are made of wheat, barley or lentils grown in a pot. Sabzeh is believed to absorb the prior year’s troubles and is thrown into water at the end of the festival. Shkalim sees a parallel to Exodus 12:19’s instruction that “leaven shall not be found in your houses” and the belief that bread represents negative forces such as arrogance that we cleanse from ourselves and our homes prior to Passover. In Algiers, she notes, Jews would throw the maror on the ground in disgust, to rid themselves of bad spirits.
Over each new year celebration (in the Hebrew Bible, the month of Passover is the first one of the calendar), social equality is emphasized. The normal hierarchies of relationships are inverted – on Pesach, even those who are poor recline as if free from want. Charity is given to bridge social divides – in the Jewish tradition this is called, variously, kimcha de-Pischa or ma’ot chittim. And guests pop by unannounced – as the Haggadah says, “all who are hungry come and eat”; and the door is opened for the prophet Elijah.
In a moving reflection in JTA in 2021, Aylin Sedighi-Gabbaizadeh described how, growing up in Iran, as Pesach approached, “Our Muslim neighbors, too, were busy cleaning, readying themselves for the coming of spring. A Muslim family with whom we were particularly friendly would come over each Passover for a taste of matzah, saying how they looked forward to it all year. My father’s co-workers knew it was an auspicious time of the year for him and wished him especially well as he took a holiday for the Seders. In the market and in the streets, though, we kept quiet about our Passover preparations. We did not discuss details with strangers and those with whom we did not feel a connection. The Seder itself brought its own associations and customs. At the end of each ritual meal, as we bid farewell to yet another holiday and sang ‘Next Year in Jerusalem,’ the words had a deep significance for us. Our Seder table became quieter with each passing year, with so many family and friends already gone to other promised lands. We each wondered out loud when our turn would come to leave a country that treated us like second-class citizens, when we would find security and peace in other lands.”
Whether or not one accepts Shkalim’s argument that certain specifics of Passover’s main meal were shaped by the cultural milieu of the Babylonian rabbis living under Persian rule, the possibilities she raises are food for thought as one chews over matzah at the Seder and hopes the Iranians can gain freedom. After all, your cousin of Iranian descent who insists on whacking you with scallions before the singing of
“Dayenu” definitely did not get that custom from the Torah. And the Jerusalem Talmud, unlike the Babylonian one produced under Persian rule, never suggests “so the children will ask” after listing a custom of otherwise unclear origin.
As a 2024 essay in Haaretz by Ofri Ilany about Shkalim’s book, titled “Jews and Iranians Have More in Common Than They Think,” noted, “Iran and Israel are two ancient cultures that sprang up in the Middle East and wielded important influences over human history. In large measure, it can be said that a fateful encounter occurred between the two civilizations at important junctions in the past, notably the Edict of Cyrus [King of Persia], which enabled the Judahite exiles to return to the Land of Israel. The present confrontation between Israel and Iran, which is taking the form of a concrete war, is another chapter in [the countries’] long history. But the long-term gaze of history reminds us that modesty is also in order. In ancient times, too, the Jews were a small people that at best ruled a tiny territory, and at worst were scattered across the lands of the region and beyond. Iran, by contrast, was a vast empire that ruled over the region we call the Land of Israel; also during other periods the Jews lived in it.”
Then again, perhaps, contra Shkalim’s case, these similarities and influences are overblown. Maybe they emerged independent of each other, organic outgrowths of spring-time festivals which understandably emphasize renewal and ridding oneself of impurities as the days grow longer and nighttime recedes. Maybe we’ll never know. That is, of course, until Elijah’s ultimate return. After all, he, as the Talmud teaches, will answer unanswered questions, whether asked by the children or by us.
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include the newly released “Jewish Roots of American Liberty,” “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”
