Pot Not Parve for Passover

I give up religion each year during Lent -- and stay away from it until the following Lent, when I renew my disassociation with it -- but this struck me as worth reporting.

In bad news for its religious Jewish supporters, an Israeli pro-marijuana party announced Tuesday that pot is forbidden on Passover.

Cannabis is among the substances Jews are forbidden to consume during the week-long festival, which begins Monday, said Michelle Levine, a spokeswoman for the Green Leaf party.

Biblical laws prohibit eating leavened foods during Passover, replacing bread with flat crackers called matza. Later injunctions by European rabbis extended those rules to forbid other foods like beans and corn, and more recent rulings have further expanded the ban to include hemp seeds, which today are found in some health oils — and in marijuana.

Green Leaf is such a perfect name for an Israeli pot party: mixing a Jewish surname with pot imagery. If I was a practicing Jew (which I'm not) and I wanted to have kids (which I don't), there's no way I wouldn't name my kid something like "Jacob Greenleaf Linnekin".

More here. What's Kosher for Passover (and not) here.

Thanks to Saul Higgins for the tip.