For Jews everywhere, Passover is rooted in the same foundational story: the Exodus from Egypt. Yet the way the holiday is celebrated — from the foods on the seder plate to the rituals performed around the table — varies widely across Jewish communities around the globe.

An upcoming online event organized by American Jewish University (AJU) will explore those diverse traditions and the ways they reflect the rich cultural tapestry of Jewish life. Titled “Many Traditions, One Exodus: Passover Around the World,” the 90-minute program on March 29 will be led by Sarah Bunin Benor, a professor of contemporary Jewish studies at Hebrew Union College (HUC) and founder of the HUC Jewish Language Project.

The online lecture promises what organizers describe as “a warm and engaging exploration of how Jewish communities around the world bring the seder to life.” Drawing on materials from the Jewish Language Project’s website, jewishlanguages.org/passover, Benor will highlight traditions preserved across centuries of migration and cultural exchange.

“These resources show the centrality of Passover, one of Judaism’s holiest holidays, to Jewish culture and tradition, and display how the preservation of customs has held across so many widely dispersed languages and cultures,” the Jewish Language Project website, which even includes instructions on how to create an afikomen escape room, explains.

During the program, Benor will guide participants through a variety of global Passover practices, illustrating how communities have adapted the ritual while maintaining its core themes.

“I’ll be sharing haroset recipes from around the world,” Benor told The Journal in a recent phone interview.

The sweet mixture of fruit, nuts and wine — meant to symbolize the mortar used by enslaved Israelites in Egypt — varies widely depending on local ingredients and culinary traditions. In some Sephardic communities it includes dates and sesame seeds, while Ashkenazi families often incorporate apples, cinnamon and walnuts.

Beyond food, Benor said the seder itself takes on different forms in different communities, whether via afikomen rituals, the arrangement of ritual items on the seder plate or what Haggadah is used. Passover seders and how they’re performed vary around the world, she said.

“I’ll be talking about how this plays out in different Jewish communities and how we as American Jews can infuse our seders with this content as a way of feeling more connected with our people,” Benor said.

One example she plans to highlight is a Moroccan seder ritual known as “Bibhilu.” During the ritual, the leader lifts the seder plate — adorned with the traditional symbolic foods — and walks around the table, waving it above the heads of participants. “When my father did this, each of us wondered whether he would simply wave the plate above our heads or knock us over the head with it,” Rabbi Daniel Bouskila, director of the Sephardic Educational Center, recalled in a 2005 essay for The Journal.

The unique ritual traveled along with Moroccan Jews as they migrated to other parts of the world. In Brazil, for example, where a sizable Moroccan Jewish community settled, Bibhilu is still performed around many seder tables.

Other variations appear in the very structure of the seder itself. The arrangement of items on the seder plate — and sometimes the plate itself — differs from community to community.

“Foods used for different symbolic foods varied by community,” Benor said.

In Yemenite Jewish tradition, for instance, the entire table can function as the seder plate, with the ritual foods arranged across the table rather than on a single platter. In Libya, families often use a woven basket tray known as a “sabadj” to hold the ceremonial items.

Even the order of the Four Questions can differ slightly in Yemenite tradition, reflecting the diversity that has developed within the shared framework of the Passover narrative.

The origins of the program date back to the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the Jewish Language Project, an HUC initiative that aims to highlight the diversity of the Jewish people, had planned an in-person event titled “Passover Around the World.” As lockdowns spread and families began planning seders that incorporated Zoom, the program was quickly adapted into an online format.

The virtual event proved timely, offering participants new ways to enrich their holiday celebrations during a moment when many were physically separated from loved ones.

Now, six years later, Benor will revisit and expand upon that material for the AJU audience, sharing stories, visuals and traditions from Jewish communities spanning multiple continents.

By incorporating global customs into their own celebrations — whether through a new recipe, ritual, song or story — families can experience the seder as both a personal tradition and part of a much larger, shared Jewish journey.

“The seder is a liturgical event,” she said, “but it allows room for song and conversation in a community’s local language.”

As Benor sees it, exploring these diverse traditions offers a powerful reminder: while Jewish communities may celebrate Passover in different ways, they remain united by the same story of liberation.

“Passover Around the Table” takes place on March 29 at 5 p.m., live on Zoom. For more information or to register for the event, visit aju.edu/events/many-traditions-one-exodus-passover-around-world

Dean Golan Cohen never expected that a casual night out at a Santa Monica bar would lead him to the woman he would one day marry. Cohen, 30, an Israeli who moved to Los Angeles in 2018, met his Iranian fiancée at a popular student bar near UCLA in 2019. They exchanged contact information but lost touch for a few years.

It wasn’t until 2021 that they reconnected. “I was in Israel,” Cohen recalled. “She saw a photo I posted from a Persian restaurant in Tel Aviv and commented on it. That started the conversation again. I told her, ‘When I come back to Los Angeles, we should go out.”

Today the couple is engaged and planning to marry — a union that bridges countries, cultures and religions. Cohen is Israeli and Jewish. His fiancée, “Azadeh” — a pseudonym used to protect relatives still living in Iran — was born in the historic city of Isfahan.

Although she was born in a country widely regarded as Muslim, Azadeh said she doesn’t consider herself Muslim — a distinction she believes is widely misunderstood outside Iran. While the country is officially an Islamic republic, she said many Iranians privately identify as secular or nonreligious, like her.

“If you went door-to-door in Iran, many would say they don’t really consider themselves Muslim.” That’s part of the reason this relationship with a Jewish man wasn’t a taboo, as far as Azadeh was concerned. “He was the first Jew I’ve dated,” she said. “Religion has never been important to me. I was excited and curious to ask him about his culture and traditions.”

Azadeh moved to Los Angeles in 2013 at the age of 18. She said leaving Iran was not her choice, but rather the result of family pressure. “My mother’s siblings had already moved to the United States before the revolution,” she said. “My mom used to travel back and forth but never wanted to leave Iran. My aunt kept pushing her to bring me here. So I went to the embassy for an interview, and I received my visa to the USA.” After her mother brought her to Los Angeles, she returned to Iran where her son still lives. Azadeh hadn’t seen them in 13 years; they only occasionally connected on FaceTime.

Cohen served in the elite Golani Brigade, completing his service in 2016. He moved to Los Angeles, where he started studying nutrition science and food engineering. But when the war broke out after Oct. 7, 2023, he returned to Israel to join his reserve unit.

During the past two years he lost several close friends in the war in Gaza, including his commander, whom he describes as a father figure. Raised by a single mother with an absent father, Cohen said the loss hit him especially hard. “When I wanted to study in the United States, he pushed me to do it. When he died, it crushed me. I couldn’t function for a long time.”

Although they were both raised in enemy countries with different backgrounds, they quickly discovered they had a lot in common. Both say that Israelis and Iranians are very similar in the way they relate to their countries. “During war,” Cohen said, “you always see something unusual. While most people are fleeing, Israelis are trying to go back to Israel. And Iranians are the same — they don’t flee, they stay and want to see the regime fall.”  Azadeh agreed. “If not for my mother, I would still be there. Nowadays, more than ever, I want to be there and witness these things.”

A couple of years ago, Cohen joined Israel-is, an advocacy organization founded in 2017 by a group of young Israeli officers, veterans of elite IDF units. After finishing their service and traveling the world on the traditional post-service trips, they often faced harsh reactions and misconceptions from other travelers simply because they were Israelis. Cohen experienced the same and was eager to devote his time to speaking on college campuses.

It doesn’t always go smoothly. Sometimes, he said, some people simply don’t want to listen or engage in dialogue. “I just came back from Oklahoma and Arkansas, where we spoke with a group of students. On one campus tour, someone told a colleague of mine, who survived Oct. 7, ‘You should have died that day,’” he recalled.

Experiences like this have only strengthened Cohen’s resolve. Although hearing such things is upsetting, he explained that what matters is how you respond — and that responding thoughtfully can actually work in your favor. “We want to use these situations to our advantage,” he said. “When people wish us harm, others who are watching, see who they want to align with. They’re drawn to the side that responds with reason.”

Cohen sees his advocacy as an extension of his military service. “It’s like serving your country on the battlefield, but now you serve it on college campuses and wherever we need to repair Israel’s image,” he said. Through Israel-is, he focuses on personal storytelling as the strongest tool to challenge misconceptions about Israel. Meeting real people, he said, makes it harder for others to hate. During the past two years, he had visited no fewer than 20 campuses across the United States.

When the recent crisis in Iran began, Cohen launched a new initiative. He helped organize a campus tour across the U.S., designed to engage students in dialogue about life under the Iranian regime.

“On the West Coast, we’re opening a Middle Eastern living room on campus, with a Persian rug, tea, sweets and seating,” he said. “We bring together an Israeli and an Iranian to share their experiences, start dialogue. We want to show how this regime in Iran shaped our lives and at the same time how it shaped theirs, because many people are unaware or are uneducated and we want to give them those personal voices.”

Cohen asked The Journal not to show his face in any photos. He explained that the reasons are the very real legal and security risks faced by former IDF soldiers abroad.

Pro-Palestinian organizations and legal groups in several countries have targeted Israeli military personnel with complaints and pursued legal actions through international bodies such as the International Criminal Court and domestic courts — efforts that in some cases have led to arrest warrants or summonses against individuals with alleged ties to the conflict.

“There are organizations that track Israeli soldiers living abroad,” Cohen said. “They follow you online, and if they see you traveling, they can file arrest warrants or complaints to try to have you detained.” Because of these threats, Cohen prefers to maintain a level of anonymity while continuing his advocacy work.

Cohen and Azadeh look toward the future after the war and look forward to visiting each other’s homelands, walking through the streets of Tel Aviv and Tehran together, and finally meeting the families they’ve only spoken about until now.

“Next year in Tehran,” he said with a smile, putting his own twist on the traditional Haggadah phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem.”