I first met Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) and discovered his Haggadah in 1975. In search of a gift for each member of my wedding party, I wandered into Bloch’s Judaica bookstore on Manhattan’s West Side and purchased several copies of the blue velvet-covered 1956 first Israeli edition of the Szyk Haggadah. Thus was kindled my intimate…
If there’s any story from Jewish history that deserves to be made into a graphic novel, it’s the Exodus story. Plagues? A magic staff-wielding superhero-figure? The splitting of the Red Sea? It’s practically begging for it. And lucky for us, someone has found a way to do that – just in time for Passover. Cartoonist…
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…
Some Seders focus on the plot of the Haggadah — the hunger-fueled journey to Egypt, the 400 years of ensuing enslavement, the long and brutal struggle against Pharaoh’s cruelty and, at last, the triumphant Exodus. But in families like mine, the main event is not plot, it’s the vowels. Dinner is postponed indefinitely as relatives…
Single until the age of 38, I’d had no shortage of getting together with women, but I was excited when I was invited to the New York Feminist Seder. This was the real deal, the one launched in the 70’s by Esther Broner, who with Naomi Nimrod had written “The Women’s Haggadah.” I was aware…
“I’d only ever been to one Passover. Back in 1984, when my best Jew lawyer, Roy Cohn, finally convinced me to accept one of his invitations to a Seder at his penthouse in Manhattan. Frankly, there’s only one word to describe that night. Boring. Even with Madonna as my date, and I’m talking still-hot, pre-pregnant,…
Passover reflects America. Over the last two decades, two trends have defined American religious life: disaffiliation and spiritual searching. More Americans than ever are leaving the religious denominations of their childhood: Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish communities alike. Each tradition, in turn, is becoming smaller, more traditional, and more conservative (except Catholics, due to the influx…
It’s time to face facts: Passover is broken. Busted. Split in two. Half of us are celebrating one part of the holiday while the other half celebrates the other part. Most of us don’t even realize we’re celebrating only half the holiday. This shouldn’t surprise us. The Jewish community worldwide is broken into pieces. There’s…
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