ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Millions of people of the Jewish faith are observing Passover. However, some say this year’s holiday feels different.

“This year it's particularly challenging to celebrate the holiday, even though we know that we must,” CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester Meredith Dragon said. “We still obviously celebrate the theme of the holiday, which is freedom, although that is really clouded by the fact that there are 133 hostages still in the hands of a terrorist organization.”

Meredith Dragon became the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester in April 2016. They are working to bring agencies, synagogues and institutions together for the greater good of the Jewish community. 

“I really have a love for our people and the Jewish people,” Dragon said. “It's important that we have strong, vibrant Jewish communities so that the mission of our organization really speaks to me. And it's a wonderful thing to be able to go to sleep every night knowing that I'm doing something to make our world a better place.”

But this year, Dragon is struggling with how to reconcile a holiday commemorating freedom, while watching the war unfold.

“This week we've had three videos released of hostages,” Dragon said. “Clearly, they are struggling. One of the hostages whose video actually came out yesterday is the brother of somebody locally here in Rochester, Keith Segal.”

Dragon says despite the circumstances, they have still celebrated within their own homes and for others who never got to make it back to one.

“We help people incorporate what's going on right now in Israel and certainly the hostages into their Passover seders,” Dragon said. “We ask people to have an extra chair at their Seder with a picture of somebody who'd been kidnapped. We usually drink four cups of wine. During the Passover Seder, we added a fifth cup of wine in recognition of the hostages.” 

Passover is occuring in a season of protest, as students across the country have been sleeping out on campuses day and night over the Israel-Hamas war.

“I think that our Jewish students on campus are really struggling and my son is at a school where there was an encampment,” Dragon said. “That's been really traumatic for our Jewish students who feel very misunderstood. And some of the language and the symbolism, you know, goes right back to the old tropes of anti-semitism that we've seen for decades.”

Dragon experiencing antisemitism firsthand.

“I’ve been called a Nazi,” Dragon said. “There was a cartoon that came out a few weeks ago here locally that was a terribly antisemitic cartoon. And people say horrible, hateful, hurtful things without really understanding the implications.”

Finding many challenges in celebrating this year, the holiday has given them an opportunity to reflect on Jewish strength, resistance and resilience. 

“We say let our people go,” Dragon said. “It's a phrase that Moses kept saying to Pharaoh. Two-hundred innocent people who were taken from their homes violently on Oct. 7 are still in captivity. And I wish the world's focus would change to Hamas and to say that our people should be freed.”