Page 22 - Harlem Pesach Companion 2021

Fallacies of Freedom

By Danna Creager

“The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”
- Maya Angelou

“…the changes we have to have in this country are going to be
for liberation of all people - because nobody's free until
everybody's free." - Fannie Lou Hamer

I grew up in a family for which my aunt and uncle created a
Passover Haggadah that held the general theme that, while the
Jews may have made it out of Egypt, true freedom has yet to be
reached. The injustices in the world exemplify how oppression exists in various forms for
various people. From an early age, I was exposed to social injustices facing the world via
my synagogue, a piece of Judaism that I did not realize was true of many Jewish spaces.
While our family carried this discussion throughout our Passover seder, I did not learn
the phrase Freedom Seder nor its history until I went to college.

The first Freedom Seder took place on April 4, 1969, exactly one year after the murder of
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. The content focused on the oppression of people
deemed “different” and “other” and drove home that all people’s liberation is dependent
on one another. If you’re curious to learn more about this first Freedom Seder you can
find many resources on it online, including video footage. 52 years later, Freedom Seders
are still being held and oppression continues.

As we continue to feel the constraints of COVID on our lives, this year will be the second
Passover holiday under circumstances that we have not seen in our lifetimes. Many of us
desire to return to the way that things were over a year ago, but I want to challenge all of
us to break away from this idea.

This Passover, don’t think about going back to where we were but instead both dream
and work towards going forward. We need to move toward a place where Black men and
trans femmes are not murdered in the streets without consequences to their killers.
Forward to a place where Asian Americans are not attacked because of false rhetoric used
in media. Forward to a place where immigrants are not labeled as violent criminals.
Forward to a place where indigenous people are not continuously exploited and handed
broken promises. Forward to a place where nobody is persecuted for their religious
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