TV review: Passover UK: A Jewish Journey. Late but great

The diversity within our community was a theme, from the strictly Orthodox blow-torching their cooker hobs to progressive Paula in Belfast who includes an orange on her Seder plate to symbolise marginalised Jews. Then there was the lady at a communal Seder musing that the theme of freedom could be applied to the Palestinians. But in general this was a programme light on politics, keen to show traditions and unifying values.

The great advantage of making the programme this year and airing it after the festival was the opportunity to show the empty chairs families had left for the hostages. And the over-arching message was that differences among Jews were small compared to the importance of remembering that we were slaves in Egypt.
The last Seder, led by Edwin Shuker, was my favourite – an Iraqi Seder, held in Hebrew, English and Arabic, according to the traditions of Shakur’s family who had lived in Iraq for 2000 years before fleeing antisemitism in the 1970s.
He had invited guests from other faiths, and it was truly heart-warming to hear the Muslim mayor of Newham talk about how moving she’d found the experience.

 I felt for Holder’s mum when he tasted the date-based charoset made by one of the owners of Honey & Co and declared it “Better than my mother’s”. Maybe it was a good thing that in the interests of programme-making Holder wasn’t going to be at his parents for Seder this year? Just kidding, his family must have missed him. But they’ll have been kvelling as they watched his programme.