Disney changed the actual text of the Passover story from ‘next year in Jerusalem’ to ‘next year in the Holy Land’ in a holiday PSA.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
The Disney Channel got slammed this week for some bizarre, and potential politically motivated revisionism, related to the Passover story, an event that is central to the Jewish people’s history, culture, and tradition.
Disney changed the actual end of the Passover seder story by removing the word “Jerusalem,” which is the Jewish people’s eternal capital and also the modern state of Israel’s capital.
“We called out the Disney Channel for its Passover PSA [public service announcement] that replaced the traditional Jewish phrase ‘Next year in Jerusalem’ with ‘Next year in the Holy Land’ because it is a deliberate negation of Jerusalem as the eternal Jewish capital,” B’nai B’rith International tweeted.
“Disney can’t hide their contempt for Jewish tradition in hiding ‘Jerusalem’,” said blogger David Lange of the Israellycool website, adding that Disney was pushing “the reinvention of Jewish tradition.”
“There is absolutely no doubt they deliberately altered the phrase because of political correctness,” said Lange. “They do not want to admit that we have been pining to return to Jerusalem for thousands of years (and thankfully many of us made it!).”
The Torah commands all Jews to celebrate Passover every year by telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, which takes place during the Seder meal at the beginning of the holiday. For generation upon generation, Jews around the world end the Seder with the Hebrew phrase L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim – literally “Next year in Jerusalem.”
The script writers at Disney clearly ignored the actual text, and we can only speculate that they didn’t want to offend any viewers by mentioning Israel’s capital.
Child actor Jason Maybaum, who plays the character Levi Grayson in the Disney Channel show “Raven’s Home,” said at the end of the video: “I like the phrase that ends the seder. It’s a wish for our wandering to come to an end and for us to find a home. So we say: ‘next year in the Holy Land.'”
That is not how Jews end the seder and Disney must correct the error.
Disney has not yet bothered to respond to the criticism from B’nai Brith and the Algemeiner website, with social media comments knocking the mega-company for trying to cut the Judaism out of a Jewish holy day.
“Disney Channel–for 2,000 years Jews at the Passover Seder have said ‘next year in Jerusalem!’ And now you decide to change it after a couple of thousand years? You sure about that?,” tweeted Todd Richman.
“There is no way that this wasn’t deliberate. ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ is an iconic phrase and the most well-known saying from the Seder. ‘Next Year in the Holy Land’ is clunky sounding,” noted the popular blogger Elder of Ziyon.
“One can only guess that someone at Disney felt that the phrase ‘Next Year in Jerusalem’ was potentially offensive to some segments of the audience – perhaps thinking that mentioning Jerusalem would be a political statement, or too much a reminder of Donald Trump moving the embassy there, or something that Muslims would object to,” the blogger said. “And the feelings of Jews being offended that a huge multinational corporation decided to sacrifice a basic tenet of the faith on the altar of some perceived political correctness are, as usual, ignored.”