Pesach Greetings from World WIZO
18 April 2024
With heavy hearts, we prepare to celebrate another holiday. The World WIZO leadership would like to share their Passover thoughts and blessings with our worldwide WIZO family.
Anita Friedman - Chairperson World WIZO
Anat Vidor - President World WIZO
Dear friends and leaders, my WIZO sisters around the world,
On behalf of the WIZO leadership and myself, I would like to wish you all a happy and blessed Passover.
On the 14th of Nisan, thousands of years ago, a storm swept through the land of Egypt: Pharaoh and his people were struck by the plague of the firstborn, and the people of Israel fled from their oppressors, embarking on a long journey to freedom.
Since then, every 14th of Nisan, we recount our story, that of a people marching in a winding journey towards independence and peace. Even today, approximately 130 generations after our ancestors left Egypt, we still navigate between challenges and hope, between routine and crisis, between division and unity, believing that out of every disaster, redemption will sprout.
On October 7th, we were attacked, and all of us found ourselves on the front lines. WIZO institutions, employees, branches, WIZO women in Israel and you all, our friends abroad, showed remarkable determination and steadfastness in the storm. Five fingers clenched into a fist, to contribute all their strength in times of trial. We initiated numerous and diverse activities, including hosting and supporting refugees, assisting the injured, supporting our forces operating in the field, and advocating both in Israel and around the world.
If in normal times WIZO is united around shared values and dreams, in times of danger, this partnership becomes a source of strength for the entire Israeli society. I thank each and every one of you who chooses WIZO as your link between yourself and Israeli society. Your immense assistance is of great importance, giving us in Israel a vital boost and a feeling that we are not alone.
Six months since the outbreak of war, the ground beneath us is still shaking. Israeli citizens are still held hostage by Hamas, tens of thousands of refugees will not celebrate Pesach in their homes, hundreds of families have been plunged into mourning, children have become orphans, young women widows, elderly parents bereaved, and an entire country is trying to emerge from the trauma that has befallen it.
Our war is not only in Gaza but worldwide, and the wave of anti-Semitism sweeping the world is expressed not only in actions against the State of Israel but also against Jewish communities. At WIZO, we listen with deep concern to the testimonies of our friends, and send them our love and support. To this must be added the unprecedented missile attack from Iran this week, and new fronts that have been added to the ones we already had.
My friends: The upcoming holiday gives us an opportunity to draw inspiration and strength from our ancestors, from oppressed slaves who fought courageously to create a better future for generations to come - for us. A nation that proved that when it is united and determined, not even the sea can stand in its way.
I wish you all a happy and kosher Passover, filled with family, light and love. May Passover 5784 be a source of strength, optimism, faith in the good, and faith in ourselves, so that we may return from it whole and strong, praying for the return of all our sons and daughters to their homes, to peace, and to the unity of Israel.
Next year in Jerusalem,
Anita Friedman
Chairperson, World WIZO
Dearest friends,
This year there will be many Pesach messages focusing on the theme of freedom and the very obvious parallels between Moses’ cry to Pharaoh to "Let My People Go" and our cry to Hamas to "Let Our People Go."
In my Pesach message, I would like to remind the world of all the Miriams who are crying out today to let our people go, with such tremendous bravery.
Women like Ayelet Levy Shahar, mother of Naama; Rachel Goldberg-Polin, mother of Hersh; released hostages Mia Schem, Maya Regev, Amit Soussana and so many others.
My message focuses on Pesach’s theme of the journey to peoplehood. The 40-year progression of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt to self-determination in the land of Israel.
Today we are on a journey back to peoplehood, as we watch Jews around the world rising up in the face of tyranny and barbarism and reaffirming ourselves as Am Israel. Rising up against an onslaught of lies and hatred against Jews and Israel. Rising up against our enemies' attempts to destroy us, including Iran's failed attempt this past week. Rising up to reaffirm our legitimacy, and our moral leadership of the free world.
Pesach is a festival of memory, and we Jews are a people who remember. Our knowledge of history and its repeating patterns make us hyper-aware when history is forgotten - or worse, denied. Reminding the world what happens when this happens and when truth is obscured is part of our Jewish mission to be a Light Unto the Nations.
It is our duty to counteract the deliberate campaign by those who hate Jews and Israel to forget our massacre on October 7, to deny the rape of our women and to erase our hostages from the story. To blacken the word Zionism, to deny Jewish Indigeneity in the land of our ancestors, and to paint us as monsters.
Just as in every generation there is an Amalek who rises to destroy us, in every generation Jewish women must be the Miriams who speak up, speak out and lead us out of danger.
Miriam’s role in the Pesach story was central. She was the one who saved her baby brother Moses, and gave us our greatest-ever leader of the Jewish people. She was the one accompanied by a well of water that sustained us through our desert wanderings.
Miriam felt her people’s pain acutely but did not succumb to fear or despair. After we crossed through the Red Sea from slavery to freedom, the men sang only with their voices, but Miriam led the women with voice, tambourines AND dance. Symbolically, when Miriam died, the wells in the desert dried up too.
Today every WIZO woman is a Miriam. As we approach Pesach 5784 we Miriams are doing our work in UN meeting halls in Geneva and New York. At pro-Israel protests in Paris and Rio. In awareness-raising galas in UK, Mexico, Germany, Austria and the United States.
WIZO women in Israel are addressing our nation's deep pain: Rivka Neuman, the director of our women's division, is fighting daily for the most vulnerable women and children in Israeli society; WIZO women are saving the young leaders of tomorrow in our schools and youth villages and leading our society with hope and energy and optimism. Ora Korazim, our WIZO Israel chairperson, is leading over 2,000 volunteer women spread across Israel to help our citizens and soldiers at times of war. And at our head, Anita Friedman, our chairperson, is valiantly sustaining our organization through hard times.
Am Israel is nothing without our Miriams - it was true at the time of the exodus from Egypt – then called ‘the narrow place’ - and it is true today, as we wait for the exodus of those who are today still slaves in the modern narrow place of Gaza.
I wish you all a Pesach Kasher v' Sameach.
Anat Vidor
President, World WIZO