These Reviews Come with Stories

Moed Tov!

Majorly:

1) A fellow co-worker, so enamored with The Emoji Haggadah, reached out to her previous place of employment, asked if she could review my book as one last hurrah of sorts, and was granted her request! The result is the best nuts-and-bolts under-the-hood look at what I was thinking throughout my creation process. If you really want access to my brain, this piece teases out the machinery better than any other:

https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/_blog/The_ProsenPeople/post/emojis-and-exodus-an-interview-with-martin-bodek/ 

2) Talk about full circle: over 20 years ago, I published a series of dating columns in The Jewish Press' "Im Yirtzeh HaShem by You" column. The Jüdische Allgemeine, Germany's last weekly Jewish newspaper, reached out to me, asking for permission to translate and publish. Of course! I still have the copies in my archives.

Two decades later, I publish The Emoji Haggadah, and The Jüdische Allgemeine - still kicking around, still the last of its kind standing - reaches out because they'd like to review my book. Of course!

Speak German?: enjoy.; Speak Yiddish?: you'll get about 2/5th of it.; Speak English?: Click the translate button, and have fun reading the awkwardly formal result, and my gender all wrong, but the article remains quite good:

https://www.juedische-allgemeine.de/kultur/bitte-laecheln/  

Miscellany:

3) Acknowledged as part of the history of creative Haggadahs: https://blogs.brandeis.edu/freshideasfromhbi/customize-your-seder-and-raise-a-glass-to-mrs-cowen/

4) A hip-hop name drop: https://religionnews.com/2019/04/17/hip-hop-haggadah-celebrates-jewish-roots-with-a-beat/

5) Now in six libraries and spreading fast.

6) I hear that, during his Shabbos Hagadol speech, Rabbi Moshe Shmiel Rottenberg of Bais Moshe Shmiel in Brooklyn, mentioned my book as a way to keep kids involved. That's 2!

Finally:

7) Excuse me while I go find out what's going on with that New York Times article.

8) If you enjoyed my book over chag, I would be pleased with a kind word on Amazon. Thank you very much!: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602803463

-Martin(i) Bodek