The history behind Easter and Passover traditions

And all about Easter eggs and seder plates |

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By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer For Passover (April 5-13) and Easter (April 9), we’re spotlighting stories on the history of the holidays in the TIME archives. Some highlights: A look at the scientists who have been studying whether the plagues of Egypt could really have happened.  The history behind Passover traditions, from matzo to the seder plate  As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, the Ukrainian Easter egg decorating tradition has been experiencing a resurgence.  Speaking of Easter eggs, here is how eggs came to be associated with the holiday.

HISTORY ON TIME.COM The Surprising Origin of the Word 'Easter' By Katy Steinmetz Why do we use the word Easter to describe the spring's eggiest holiday? Here are the likeliest theories, dating back centuries Read More » Here's Where the Easter Bunny Came From By Alexandra Sifferlin An Easter Bunny that delivers colorful eggs does not appear in the Bible, and its exact origins are clouded in mystery Read More » Here’s Why Easter Eggs Are a Thing By Olivia B. Waxman Their beginnings can be traced to centuries of Christian tradition Read More » The History Behind the Ukrainian Tradition of Decorating Pysanky Easter Eggs By Olivia B. Waxman Decorating a 'pysanka' has become a gesture of peace, as war has brought new meaning to an old tradition that dates back to pre-Christian times Read More » COVID-19 Has Upended Traditions for Passover and Easter By Olivia B. Waxman But religious traditions have adapted for past pandemics, too Read More » Column: What Is the Point of Celebrating Easter During a Pandemic? By N.T. Wright If we want to see fresh hope the other side of the Pandemic—signs of Easter, after a Lent for a whole year—then the church must shape up. Read More » Did the 10 Plagues of Egypt Really Happen? Here Are 3 Theories By Olivia B. Waxman Scientists have looked for evidence that could be linked to the Exodus story Read More » The History Behind 7 Passover Traditions By Sarah Gray From the Biblical story of Exodus to traditional foods, this is everything you need to know before you attend a Passover seder Read More » The Roots of Surprising Passover Seder Traditions From Around the World By Olivia B. Waxman Joan Nathan, author of the new cookbook King Solomon's Table, sheds light on the roots of Passover traditions from around the world Read More » 3 Counterintuitive Lessons From Passover By Rabbi David Wolpe A man in a desert alone is not free Read More » Column: COVID-19 Is Upending My Family's Passover Tradition—We're Staying Apart So We Can Be Together By Lori Fradkin I could hear my mom in another room once again asking someone if the kosher beef ribs had arrived. Or maybe it was the kosher… Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1964: novelist John Cheever “The Wapshot Scandal (TIME, Jan. 24), the second of his two novels, is selling at a brisk 2,000 copies a week, and has already topped the total sales of his first novel, The Wapshot Chronicle—although the Chronicle won the National Book Award in 1958. Movie rights to both have been bought for $75,000, but it seems likely that any movie will mirror merely the realism. Cheever has been long acknowledged as a master of the short story, of which he has written over a hundred…Ultimately, Cheever tries to ‘celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream.’ Says he: ‘One has an impulse to bring glad tidings to someone. My sense of literature is a sense of giving, not a diminishment. I know almost no pleasure greater than having a piece of fiction draw together disparate incidents so that they relate to one another and confirm that feeling that life itself is a creative process, that one thing is put purposefully upon another, that what is lost in one encounter is replenished in the next, and that we possess some power to make sense of what takes place.’” (Mar. 27, 1964) Read More » This week in 1974: Henry Kissinger “For the President, who takes a special pride in his mastery of foreign policy, there may well be particularly poignant irony in the fact that Kissinger is now widely viewed as an autonomous operator who might well survive the collapse of the Nixon Administration. (Vice President Gerald Ford has made it clear that, should he become President, he would ask Kissinger to stay on.)… Sums up Presidential Aide Alexander Haig: ‘I think the President considers Henry a unique national institution.’ For Kissinger personally, the success of his Moscow trip is particularly crucial for the continuation of his grand vision of American policy, for the maintenance of the accomplishments he has both achieved and has still in the making. So swiftly and dramatically has the Secretary of State worked radical changes in U.S. diplomacy—detente with Moscow, friendship with Peking, progress toward a settlement in the Middle East—that he has acquired something of the mystique of a magician, pulling doves of peace out of a hat for a fascinated circle of world watchers.” (April 1, 1974) Read More » This week in 2003: Iraq War begins “Although the battlefield produced the usual fog of conflicting reports, at least one thing was made clear with the first salvo: the principal target of Gulf War II is not the Iraqi military but Saddam himself. Inside the U.S. war rooms, quickly decapitating the Iraqi regime is seen as critical to bringing about the destruction of the enemy. ‘We want to turn the Iraqi military into a chicken with its head cut off,’ a senior Navy official says. Saddam ‘might be able to strike back, but it will be uncoordinated and ultimately fruitless.’ Defense sources say that U.S. forces will rush to Baghdad as quickly as possible to try to corner Saddam and flush him out into the open; if a coup or assassination fails to dislodge him, U.S. air and ground forces plan to launch more strikes against critical targets inside the capital in an effort to kill him. A senior U.S official told TIME that covert U.S. intelligence personnel have infiltrated Baghdad, hunting in the shadows for the Iraqi leaders. ‘We've had some folks on the ground over there now for weeks,’ the official says.” (Mar. 31, 2003) Read More »

100 Years of TIME "You" as Person of the Year for 2006 Former TIME Editor-in-Chief Richard Stengel reflects on how he made the buzzy cover choice. Read More »

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