ISRAELI ARAB RECEIVES SYMBOLIC LEAVENING FOR PASSOVER FROM CHIEF RABBIS IN JERUSALEM, 1998-04-09 (photo)

Hussein Ismail Jaber, an Israeli Arab from the village of Abu Gosh (L), receives from the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Israel Lau (R) a package containing all the "hametz", or leavening, in Israel as the Chief Sephardic Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron looks on April 9 in a ceremony in the offices of the rabbis prior to the start of the Jewish high holiday of Passover. Passover, which begins with the "seder" dinner tomorrow evening, is a week-long holiday celebrating the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. It is a time when religious Jews thoroughly clean their homes and refrain from eating any food such as bread that contains leavening. The rabbis symbolically sell all the leavening in Israel to Arabs for the week-long Passover holiday which is returned after the holiday ends. ISRAEL PASSOVER