But different as they may be, one thing is certain. Jews, no matter where they are, make the effort. When Phil Speigel was in the South Pacific during World War II, he heard an announcement for any servicemen of the Jewish faith to meet on deck to celebrate Passover. “We said the borachu over the wine and matzah,“ he said. “At least we had something.”

“Before Passover in Kiev, my grandmother had to get some flour, which was not always available,” said Yuliya Cohen. The flour was hidden in a bag. “One morning, when it was still dark, we went to a synagogue, a woman met us outside and we inconspicuously slipped the bag to her,” she said. They were told when to come back for the matzah, also hidden in the bag. “The pieces were round and uneven,” said Cohen, who operates the Energy Restructuring Institute in Brighton. “During Passover, we would treat it as something truly special. “My father, Moisey Lerner, always attended an Orthodox synagogue here,” she added. “He wanted a formal service that was forbidden in Russia.” (In fact, Lerner’s rabbi was Advocate publisher Rabbi Korff.)

“When I did my semester in London,” recalls Danny Baram of Hollywood, California, “one of my friends and roommates from BU had cousins living in a very nice, very Jewish suburb called Edgeware.” He was invited for the Passover seder. “It was truly awesome and infinitely rewarding to befriend a British family, a British Jewish family no less, and to learn about the cultural differences as well as the similarities,” he said.

Kia, a Canadian TV producer living in Kenya, had parents visit her in Nairobi. “After the Karen Giraffe Sanctuary and an elephant orphanage, they conducted “a makeshift Passover seder with plastic plates and matzah and macaroons imported from Montreal,” she said. “We also managed to fit in a jaunt to synagogue.”

“Just imagine the Four Questions in this totally foreign language,” says Joy from San Francisco, who celebrated a Seder in Tokyo. “I think this whole experience has turned Jason on to a new concept of ‘celebrating Jewish holidays around the world,‘” she said of her husband. “Hey, if he's willing to take me to a foreign country every time a Jewish holiday rolls around, I'm in!,“ she said.

We enjoy them anywhere, it seems. In fact, we think seders are so great, we make special ones for other communities. “Years ago I was in an advocacy group called Fair Share,” said Leslie Greenberg of Lynn. “We invited Cambodian immigrants to join us for a seder in Revere,” she said. “They couldn't speak English, but they loved the tradition,” she said. “They especially liked the gefilte fish, which reminded them of home!”

And Lis Meyers actually went to one in Cambodia, though she bemoaned the lack of charoset, and the general fare. “The meal consisted of hard boiled eggs, plain broth that cried out for their absent matzoh balls, meatballs and fruit platters,” she said.

But fear not, travel-wary. Charoset most definitely makes the scene in most countries, albeit in various formats. According to modernhaggadah.com, it contains almonds and raisins with spices in Greece; oranges, avocados, lemon, dried fruits and matzah meal in California; fruits, lemon rind and pecans in Canada; coconut, apples, walnuts, apricots, pears, cherry jam, cinnamon and wine in Surinam; pinenuts, egg yolk, apple, nuts, lemon zest, cinnamon and ginger in North Africa. Venetian Charoset includes chestnut paste and poppy seeds; Yemenite versions include coriander, red chili pepper and cayenne or sesame seeds, cumin and cardomom, or pomegranates and spices.

Online, Tami Lehman-Wilzig’s book Passover Around the World takes kids from Gibraltar to India and beyond. My Jewish Learning.com’s “How Is This Seder Different?” by Lesli Koppelman Ross describes international seder customs from around the world. And writer Donald H. Harrison cites some global Pesach customs: in Czernowitz, Ukraine, ashes from wood-burning stoves are saved for months to Kosher pots for the holiday. In Tunis, cleaning includes carding the cotton inside mattresses. Egyptian Jews, he says, follow Sephardic customs, and clean quantities of rice beforehand. Harrison’s reports in Jewish sightseeing.com include covering matzot with beautiful scarfs in Morocco while songs of love for Israel are sung, the plate turned atop a child’s head (reminding participants of their slavery pasts) and a game of passing a sack around, where the recipient, asked where he/she is going, responds “Yerushalayim!” In Byelorussia, everyone asks the Four Questions, from the oldest to the youngest. In some countries, the leader sits on a cushion of goose feathers or wears a white headscarf. In Iran, Dayenu is preceded by scallion-whipping (bringing to mind an Egyptian taskmaster beating the Hebrew slaves). Afikomen rewards, Elijah’s chair décor, matzah size and shape vary around the world as well.

Seders are clearly defined by the right attitude. Lionel Chetwynd, an Oscar and Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker living in Los Angeles, realized this as a boy. “I sat at the seder with my sister’s Polish-born husband and the remnants of his family,” he recalled, adding, “The 12 weary souls around that table were all that remained of what had once been 300. The others were gone, their lives consumed by zyklon-b gas, their mortal remains wisps of smoke from a Büchenwald chimney.”

As the Seder ended, his brother-in-law, noting Chetwynd’s anger, said, “Don’t be a fool.“

“The Germans left so many of us dead and stole the joy from so many that remain. So now you want to give them the final victory by allowing your own life to be consumed and twisted and deformed by the same hatred? Leave it to them. That’s why we, at this table, forgive. Not forget, but forgive.”