Vivian Aghai from Lebanon recalls painting the whole house every year before Pesach.
In Tunisia, Elisabeth Barkany’s family held a meshwi, a barbecue, on the night before the festival.
They are two of the interviewees who reminiscence about their experiences when they lived in North Africa and the Middle East in An Unusual Passover, a short video produced by Sephardi Voices UK.
For the past decade, the organisation has been compiling an oral testimony of those who came from Morocco, Egypt, Iraq and other countries to Britain.
Bea Lewkowitz, director of Sephardi Voices UK, said: “This year we are celebrating the festival of Passover in exceptional circumstances.
“Many of our interviewees will celebrate it without their children and grand-children. Families cannot be together and we all do not know when things will go back to normal.
“In these uncertain times, we feel that we can take inspiration from the wonderful memories of our interviewees, who fondly remember how they and their families prepared and celebrated Passover.”
See An Unusual Passover
