Mr. Speaker, at sundown this Saturday, celebrations for Passover, Pessach in Hebrew, will begin. In Quebec, in Canada and throughout the world, millions of Jews will be sitting down together for the first two Passover Seders.
With these Seders, our Jewish fellow citizens commemorate the flight of the Israelites out of Egypt, led by Moses, to escape slavery and oppression. In the Seder, the elders transmit the story of this dark yet glorious episode in the history of the tribe of Abraham to the younger generations, in order to preserve spiritual memory.
These Seders are, therefore, at the very core of the transmission of Jewish identity, and ensure its continuity because, according to tradition, children play a key role in that continuity.
I encourage my colleagues to take part in these celebrations as a tangible expression of their openness and to offer their best wishes to their Jewish constituents.
To all our Jewish fellow citizens, Hag Sameach .