As part of its comprehensive preparations for the Passover holiday, the IDF Rabbinate worked to facilitate kosher-for-Passover equipment and seder-night supplies for all units in the Israel Defense Forces. These efforts extended not only to assembly and training areas in Israel but to combat-ready units in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Judea and Samaria, all while maintaining readiness for combat escalation and extreme scenarios.
To enable all soldiers on operational missions, including positions and ambushes, vessels, aircraft, armored vehicles, etc., to celebrate and mark the seder night according to Jewish law, 7,000 individually pre-packaged “mitzvah meals” were distributed to soldiers in combat zones, containing all the food items necessary to conduct a Passover seder. The packages contained a seder plate with all its components (handmade matzah, grape juice, roasted meat, bitter herbs, charoset and a karpas vegetable), as well as pamphlets containing halachah (Jewish law) guidelines for religious soldiers dealing with combat-related limitations.
In addition, the IDF Rabbinate trained hundreds of soldiers and volunteer leaders in a special workshop so they could conduct the seder in units and the field.
Col. Rabbi Chaim Weisberg, the head of the IDF Rabbinate Department, explained the motivation behind the preparations. “The IDF Rabbinate,” he said, “working in close cooperation with logistics personnel at the General Staff Supply Center, did everything possible so that soldiers felt the spirit of the holiday and as much at home as possible on Passover. As part of this, attention and optimal responses were given to unique populations such as celiacs, vegans, vegetarians and those requiring stricter kosher certification.”
Beyond the seder meals, the following items were distributed to soldiers stationed in the Syrian, Lebanese, Gaza, and Judea and Samaria sectors, as well as assembly areas: more than 83,000 Haggadahs; 200,000-plus pounds of matzah, including 17,000 pounds of handmade matzah; matzah with strict kosher certification (Eida Haredit) for Haredi soldiers; 390 tons of meat cuts, 420 tons of chicken and 64 tons of fish, all kosher-for-Passover; 710,000 kosher-for-Passover “rolls”; and thousands of seder plates, wine cups, kippahs and prayer books.
Additionally, dozens of morale-boosting materials were produced and distributed in the thousands, dealing with strengthening the fighting spirit, as well as halachic guidelines for holiday observance this year, with a special section regarding Passover eve falling on Shabbat.
Equally critical from a kosher standpoint, the IDF Rabbinate worked to “turn over” all IDF food facilities and make them kosher-for-Passover—from the Syrian Hermon down to the southernmost outpost in Eilat. Thousands of kitchens and other facilities were “koshered” in a highly complex operation by hundreds of rabbinical and professional staff, regular and reserve soldiers, at times requiring the use of blowtorches and industrial-sized vats of boiling water.
Col. (res.) Rabbi Chagai Velusky, Passover Project coordinator, said that “every year is challenging in its own right,” but this year was particularly so because of all the uncertainty. Right up until Passover eve, he noted, “not everything was finalized due to security considerations. We knew everything would be fluid and volatile, yet alongside this, we needed to prepare.”
He continued, saying that “all the kosher preparations were done without affecting operational activity, which is a very important principle that guides us in preparation for kosher certification and in the certification itself.
“An additional complication unique to this year was that the seder night fell on Saturday night. This meant the seder started at a relatively late hour, which challenged us to speed up the seder in certain locations that rotated out personnel during seder night for operational reasons. It also required us to provide special matzah for soldiers to use instead of challah for their Shabbat meals, but which needed to remain separate from the Pesach matzah, as it was already forbidden to serve leavened products in any of the meals on IDF bases before Shabbat.”
Velusky added: “Not only that, but for the first time, we also prepared across the border in Syria, which was a challenge unto itself. The intense activity in the West Bank further complicated matters, as during the week of ‘koshering’ itself, additional battalion rotations were called up, and we had to provide kosher-for-Passover facilities for them as well.”