Next Year in Jerusalem?
Kadesh, Urchatz
April 13, 1949. We are celebrating the end of the war and mourning the deaths of our family members in the Holocaust. There is a new Jewish state in the Promised Land. This seder feels important.
Karpas, Yachatz
April 6, 1974. We remember the Holocaust, and we see Jews in the USSR facing discrimination and emigrating to Israel. We look toward the recent conflict between Israel and Egypt with worry. This seder, we think about what it means to never be slaves in Egypt again.
Maggid, Rachtzah Motzi, Matzah
April 14, 1995. The Oslo accords have been signed. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have recognized each other for the first time. This seder, we feel hope for persecuted and displaced peoples everywhere.
Maror, Korech Shulchan Orech
April 22, 2024. It’s been 198 days since the attacks of October 7th. Tens of thousands of Palestinians are dead; hundreds of thousands are starving, and over a million are displaced. This seder, we ask ourselves tough questions we haven’t wanted to ask before.
If we define ourselves as jews through a history of persecution, if we ask ourselves to empathize with others persecuted around the world, what does it mean for us when we are told to align ourselves with the persecutors?
How do we understand ourselves when the narratives our family history gives us leave something to be desired?
Tzafun, Barech Hallel, Nirtzah
Next Year in Jerusalem? is a LARP about contemporary American Jewish identity in the context of global politics. Taking place at four seders in the same family over 75 years, it explores the perspectives of different generations of American Jews on Israel and Palestine.
Players play two or three different characters over the course of the LARP, with opportunities to play both a younger family member and an older family member at different times. Characters have different perspectives on the State of Israel, informed by their family history and by contemporary politics.
This game ran at Be Con 2024 and may run at Intercon W.