Snohomish County celebrates Easter, Passover
Published 1:30 am Sunday, April 5, 2026
EVERETT — Members of religious communities across Snohomish County celebrated the beginning of significant holidays throughout last week.
For Christians, last week marked the beginning of Holy Week, the end of a period of fasting known as Lent, which culminated in the Easter holiday on Sunday. In Christianity, it commemorates the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jewish communities across the county also began to celebrate Passover, which began Wednesday and will continue through April 9. That holiday marks the remembrance of the Exodus, marking when Jewish people were freed from slavery in Egypt.
On Friday, over 700 people gathered at Angel of the Winds arena for the annual Snohomish County Prayer Breakfast event. It included songs, prayers, speeches from local pastors, and a keynote address from Jesse Bradley, the chaplain of the Seattle Sounders.
“I think in general, Christians gather during Holy Week,” said Sean Gasperetti, a pastor at Bright City Church in Everett, in an interview. He also spoke at the breakfast. “Good Friday, Easter, is part of our tradition. It’s something that will gather around with our churches, and have for millennia.”
Steve Chittenden, one of the organizers of the breakfast, said the goal was to bring members of the community together.
“The goal is to get people together to be praying for the needs of our community, the issues that we have,” he said.
April 1 also marked the beginning of Passover. For Rabbi Berel Paltiel at the Snohaimish Chabad House in Lynnwood, it meant lots of work to distribute specially made food to families across the county.
The synagogue helped distribute shmurah matzah, a type of unleavened bread that is produced in a stringent process to prevent the dough from rising. During Passover, eating leavened bread is forbidden.
Snohaimish, an organization that helps run programs and services for the Jewish community across Snohomish County, distributed several hundred matzahs to families across the county, Paltiel said, as a way to help people celebrate the important holiday.
“It’s very central in Jewish life to recount the Exodus, because that’s really when the Jewish people became a people,” said Paltiel. “… It was really one of these formative events of Judaism.”
Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.
