Thu Apr 13, 10:59 AM ET
Violent protests on top of a bloody, decade-long Maoist insurgency have seen the number of visitors to Nepal reduced to a trickle, but hundreds of Israelis have descended on the capital to celebrate a huge passover gathering.
On Wednesday night, some 1,500 people, many wearing Nepali-made yamulkes (skullcaps), convened in a hotel to celebrate the festival with a traditional meal, a four-piece Israeli band and officiating rabbis.
The hotel kitchens had to be blow-torched clean to ensure they were kosher, and rabbis had to slaughter the chickens themselves. But with a volunteer workforce of backpackers, they managed to get everything in place for the "seder", a meal and religious ceremony that celebrates the flight of the 12 tribes of Israel from slavery in Egypt 3,000 years ago.
The massive celebration came about because of a combination of a lack of Jews in Nepal, and international diplomacy, Dan Stav, Israel's ambassador to Nepal told AFP.
Traditionally, passover is celebrated with only close family, but around 20 years ago, the embassy here started inviting whichever Israeli tourists were in Kathmandu to the embassy to share in a meal.
The numbers grew, and seven years ago, the celebration began to be organised by Beit Chabad, an orthodox Jewish group and spiritual outreach service.
"When you go to other destinations whether it be Latin America or Europe or North America you have quite big Jewish communities, whereas here you have none," the ambassador told AFP.
"In the past, it was easy to come to Nepal rather than India or China or other places because of diplomatic relations. Full diplomatic relations with India and China were only established in 1992," said Stav.
Now the meal has become an integral part of the travel plans for hundreds of backpackers.
"You ask people in Israel about Nepal and they tell you 'there's this great seder. Its the biggest in the world. It's a once in a lifetime thing'," said 22 year-old Or Alon, who had volunteered to help with seder preparations.
"As soon as I decided to travel, I knew that I would do seder in Nepal," said Alon who recently completed two years national service in the Israeli army.
Most of the people at the celebration Wednesday were in their 20s and travelling after serving their time in the armed forces.
Embassies, including that of Israel, have been issuing increasingly strong travel warnings about coming to Nepal because of the ongoing political crisis. In the last five days four people have been killed by security forces during nationwide anti-royal protests and a Maoist insurgency has killed over 12,500 people in the last 10 years. But this does not worry Alon.
"Nobody here wants to hurt me. Not the Maoists, not the government. I am neutral. Its the only place I have been where I feel neutral," Alon said as he crumbled cooked eggs into a vast vat to make salad.
Stav, the ambassador, was more cautious and said that embassy warnings should be heeded.
"Tourists are not targets for any of the people here, and we emphasize this fact. However, we say that there is a growing danger that you may find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.
Samuel Maron, the owner of a large travel company in Israel, is more cautious than Alon about the situation in Nepal, but it still didn't stop him coming.
Middle-aged Maron stood out from the hundreds of dreadlocked and tattooed young Israelis at the seder, but was having a great time despite being older than the fathers of most of the people there.
"We planned this six months ago. We heard about it from our sons who were here 10 years ago. We love to see our youth spending one evening together because they are scattered all over the far east," Maron said.
For the ambassador, the appeal of celebrating passover in Nepal was clear.
"It has long roots, Nepal is a very exotic country, and to have passover in a country you can see the Himalaya from is something special," he said.
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