All posts tagged: holidays

Bogotá Part I: Passover, Semana Santa, and Celebrating My Arrival in Colombia

Having lived away from my “home” country and family for most of my life, I never developed a soft spot for holidays. We don’t have family traditions cultivated over years and years of celebrating Passover or Rosh HaShana. I remember celebrating one Passover in San Diego with our Muslim neighborhood tailor and Christian friend. Another I celebrated in Boston with a childhood friend of my father, who had become religious since my dad last saw him over 20 years ago. That was my longest Seder, as the Hagadah was read in Turkish, English, and Ladino! In Israel, my sister and I always receive multiple invitations from distant relatives and friends. Last Rosh Hashana, I was in Ko Lanta, Thailand and celebrated entering the Jewish New Year splurging at the Pimalai Restaurant with an Israeli-Dutch couple we had met that day. No matter where I am on holidays, alone I am not but most likely not with my family either. Even with my missed-flight episode, I was to do the Passover Seder with a Bogotan Jewish …