As Passover begins today, here are 10 items from the weekend you should know.
1. A shooting at two Jewish centers in Kansas City on Sunday left three dead. A Missouri man, with a history of anti-Semitism and a former KKK leader, allegedly shot a boy and his grandfather outside a Jewish community center and a woman at a Jewish assisted living facility nearby.
Geshmirta matzo, in which a cream cheese and sour cream mixture is topped with cinnamon and baked. Photo by Dave Carlin, courtesy of Tina Wasserman’s Cooking and More and Reform Judaism.org.
2. For more light-hearted Passover-related stories, our friends at Tablet Magazine have cocktail recipes for the 10 plagues. And Lauren Markoe gets lighthearted about unleavened bread (how much matzo can you take?).
Dayeinu (Hebrew for “Enough!”) is the song during the Seder where Jews list an act of God in every verse, thanking the almighty for the Exodus. But you might sing “Enough!” when you play our collection of a cappella Passover parody videos.
3. Christians celebrated Palm Sunday yesterday, gearing up for Easter-related activities this week. Pope Francis abandoned his prepared remarks during his homily, delivering off-the-cuff remarks. He then posed for selfies with young people in the crowd.
4. Religious leaders are gathered with President Obama this morning for an annual Easter Breakfast (Here’s a livestream, or watch RNS for a report later today). Judging from Russell Moore and Rachel Held Evans tweets, looks like it’ll draw a fairly diverse crowd.
@rachelheldevans if they seat us together, you can throw up on me- and no one will blame you! 🙂
— Russell Moore (@drmoore) April 13, 2014
5. Elsewhere in politics, could social conservatives be in trouble? Some prominent Republican leaders are making appeals, without mentioning abortion or same-sex marriage.
6. The Vatican is digitizing millions of pages from its priceless manuscripts, opening them to the broader public for the first time.
7. A statue of a homeless Jesus is startling a wealthy community in North Carolina. One woman called the police, believing it was an actual homeless person.
8. A watchdog claims that two advisers to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s charity have links to the Muslim Brotherhood.
9. As secular communities are growing, “atheist church” might not be the right term to call some gatherings.
10. There’s a nun who is addicted to Twitter, using social media to spread the gospel.
