Maxwell House Is Selling A ‘Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Haggadah

The Marvelous Maxwell-Maisel Haggadah is briefly available Image by Maxwell House, Nicole Rivelli
Welcome to America, where the streets are paved with gold, and major coffee brands develop gimmicks around ancient Hebraic texts to court Jewish customers!
Maxwell House, the American coffee brand, is distributing limited edition Passover Haggadot designed for fans of the Amazon show, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”
Once we were slaves, and now we are free to engage in the joys of capitalism. The cheeky booklet is a muted shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, and comes free with purchase of certain Maxwell goods. It’s not clear if the “Maisel”-themed classic Maxwell Haggadah will include references to the hit Amazon show throughout the text, or just a very collectible-looking cover.
For those of the Four Question-asking demographic, a Maxwell-“Maisel” crossover is less of a stretch than it might sound. America’s best-selling coffee brand through the 1980s is, against all odds, heavily associated with the Haggadah, the ancient text associated with Passover.
In 1923, Joseph Jacobs, (who was, not for nothing, a former Forverts employee,) convinced Maxwell House to create and market the first-ever Kosher-for-Passover coffee. Jacobs worked with rabbis to prove that coffee is technically a fruit, regardless of the moniker “beans,” which fall in the non-Kosher category (for some.) He placed an ad in the Forverts, then bolstered sales by creating a free Maxwell House Haggadah to accompany each purchase of Kosher Maxwell Coffee.
The Maxwell Haggadah — with its legible print and side-by-side Hebrew and English, a soft cover, and the promise of kosher caffeine — became an icon. Over 55 million copies of the Haggadah have been printed, and used everywhere from your grandmother’s seder to the seder in the Obama White House. It’s not inconceivable that a family like the Maisels would have given their guests copies of the Maxwell.
What would Midge do? Invite the rabbi for the seder, cultivate a juicy secret, swipe on a fuchsia lipstick, and get a “Maisel” Maxwell House Haggadah before they run out.
Next year, in Jerusalem. This year, with Mrs. Maisel.
Jenny Singer is the deputy life/features editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.