Passover Seven new haggadahs to brighten your 2022 Passover seder Caleb Guedes-Reed
( JTA)—The main components of the Passover seder—a word that literally means “order”—remain constant over time. But the style doesn’t have to stay the same. Artists, authors, rabbis, and even comedians pump out new haggadahs, the books that guide the seder, every year. This year, Passover’s Exodus story feels as urgent as ever, as multiple global conflicts—the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—have triggered massive refugee crises. The latter crisis has involved thousands of Jews who are seeking shelter in Eastern Europe, Israel, and beyond. Here are some fresh new options for 2022—some aimed at addressing the moment, others focused on fun distraction. For those looking to engage with the contemporary global Exodus HIAS, the nearly-150-year-old global Jewish refugee aid organization is busy these days: more people are displaced around the world than at any other time in recorded history. The group’s free and downloadable 2022 haggadah includes first-person stories from refugees and updated facts and figures about modern crises. Topics like violence, poverty, food insecurity and the lack of access to education that refugees face are all brought front and center. There is also a new insert for children that asks them to put objects onto the plate representing their own families’ migration stories. “As we consider our own history of escaping violence and persecution at the hands of a merciless tyrant, we also reach forward to those still in need of protection,” the haggadah reads. For the Israeli history buff Modeled after the American group with the same name, The Israeli Black Panthers were Middle Eastern and African
immigrant activists who banded together to bring attention to their dire economic and social situations in Israel in the 1970s. Written in a tin shack in Jerusalem on a stolen typewriter, The Israeli Black Panthers Haggadah was first written in 1971. A year later, a fire destroyed most of the Panthers’ archives, including their copies of the haggadah. It was thought lost for over 40 years, until a rabbi who collected haggadahs acknowledged he had a copy. This completely bilingual (HebrewEnglish) haggadah, which is being published in English for the first time, includes an introduction from Reuven Abergel, one of the movement’s founders, and other essays that reflect on the Panthers’ struggle and how it connects to the Passover story. It also includes powerful archival images of the Panthers engaged in activism. For the prettay, prettay, prettay big fans of Larry David Those who enjoy Curb Your Enthusiasm and its hysterical cast of characters will love this eponymous haggadah by Dave Cowen, a comedy writer and the author of two unofficial Seinfeld haggadahs. The Curb Your Enthusiasm Haggadah invites seder guests to essentially treat the meal as one big episode of Larry David’s HBO sitcom, and to divide the roles from the cast list amongst guests. Cowen substitutes curse words with the word hametz—or leavened bread, the food group that’s very forbidden on Passover—creating a memorably funny script. One example: Larry David: “Jeff, are you hametzing continued on page 16
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