NEW YORK (AP) — Marc Slutsky has been leading Passover Seders for 40 years, taking on troubling issues that have included Soviet Jewry, racism in the United States, and war after war after war.This year, when the slavery-to-freedom story unfolds at his table in Highland Park, Illinois, the Israel of today will be top of mind after tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul.
The plan, on pause after repeated mass demonstrations, unleashed the most intense social unrest in Israel in decades, just ahead of this week’s observance of Passover.
Slutsky, president of the independent synagogue Aitz Hayim Center for Jewish Living, in Glencoe, has Seder tweaks in mind for his 18 guests when they sit down for ritual readings, blessings and discussion.
One big change will come at the end, he said, when “Next year in Jerusalem” is traditionally recited.
“We’re going to read from the Israeli Declaration of Independence,” said the 76-year-old Slutsky, particularly a passage that promises the “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants.”
The plan proposed by Netanyahu would give him and his allies — the most right-wing government in Israeli history — more control over the co …