Introduction: Forced Labor, Racism, and Immigration

Haggadah Section: Introduction

This Haggadot.com version shares some of our favorite parts of this haggadah. To download the full text in PDF, or to order hardcopies, visit www.truah.org/haggadah.

Since 2009, T’ruah has been a leader in the Jewish community in the effort to end human trafficking — also known as forced labor and modern-day slavery. The first edition of this haggadah, published in 2015, helped to increase awareness and inspire reflection and action by the Jewish community on this crucial issue.

2020 and beyond calls for all that and more.

Human trafficking, at its core, is a crime of exploitation and control. Therefore, it can offer a lens — or perhaps a mirror — for viewing the other pressing issues of our day: immigration, racism, class struggle, and more. It is crucial for me to note that human trafficking does not require any movement across a border. American citizens — including white, middle-class men and women — can be and regularly are trafficked in their very hometowns. We cannot lose sight of that or fall into the assumption that trafficking only concerns immigrants and poor people of color. That being said, the people most vulnerable to trafficking are often immigrants and are often people of color. This haggadah focuses on their story and how it is part of our larger American story; thus, to the original title The Other Side of the Sea we have added The Other Side of the River. The expanded edition pays increased attention to immigration, particularly as it touches labor rights and worker exploitation.

This issue remains with us despite the inauguration of the Biden-Harris Administration. It will remain with us until we achieve a wholesale re-vision of our economy into one that treats human beings not as disposable cogs but as uniquely precious images of God.

--Rabbi Rachel Kahn-Troster, Deputy Director, T'ruah

Source:  
The Other Side of the River, The Other Side of the Sea
Clip Featured in Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights'sThe Other Side of the River, the Other Side of the Sea, by T'ruah
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The Other Side of the River, the Other Side of the Sea, by T'ruah
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Truah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights
Table of contents
    Introduction
  • Introduction: Forced Labor, Racism, and Immigration
    • Karpas
  • Water, Bitter and Sweet
    • Maggid - Beginning
  • The Thesis Statement of the Haggadah
    • -- Exodus Story
  • After Pittsburgh
  • Slavery and Racism
  • The Statue of Liberty Reimagined
  • Refugees, Then and Now
  • Jewish Diversity: Great, Mighty, and Multitudinous
  • Embodying Anti-Racism at the Seder
  • Excerpts from "Maror and Maggid: Clearing My Throat"
  • We Cried Out: Class and Labor Activism
  • They Put Hard Work Upon Us: Border Security
  • God saw our suffering: A new midrash
    • -- Cup #2 & Dayenu
  • Dayeinu: The Long Process of Redemption
  • In every generation: The fulcrum of the seder
    • Tzafun
  • The Organizing Principle for the Second Half of the Seder
    • Nirtzah
  • Counting the Omer Towards Redemption
  • Redempton Requires Repentance
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