Chag Kasher V'Shakesmeach!
Table of contents
- JNS.org: https://www.jns.org/
nay-leavend-bread-shalt-beest- eaten-author-martin-bodek-has- a-shakespearean-twist-on- passover/, picked up by The Jewish Exponent (Staten Island), Columbus Jewish News, Cleveland Jewish News, L'chaim Magazine (San Diego), Baltimore Jewish Times, the Jewish Ledger (Connecticut), and the wildest of them all, Christians for Israel International. - The Jewish News of Northern California: https://jweekly.
com/2023/03/28/ai-rushes-in- but-the-best-of-2023s-new- haggadahs-are-human-made/ - Times of Israel: https://www.
timesofisrael.com/shakespeare- at-the-seder-author-writes- passover-haggadah-as-the-bard- would-have/, picked up by Qoshe.com, JewishNews.com, Alberta Jewish news, and TheWorldNews.net - The Jewish Chronicle: https://www.thejc.
com/news/news/to-dip-or-not- to-dip-the-shakespeare- haggadah- 2PgR4h8OW6T03SryDOalW7 - Jewish Journal: https://
jewishjournal.com/judaism/ holidays/357462/why-is-this- haggadah-different-from-all- others/ - The St. Louis Jewish Light: https://stljewishlight.
org/our-jewish-learning/3- different-ideas-for-you-next- passover-haggadah/ - Jewish Rhode Island: https://www.
jewishrhody.com/stories/a- haggadah-for-everyone,31943 - The Jewish Link: https://jewishlink.news/
features/58511-the-haggadah- still-a-template-for-jewish- creativity - Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/
lifestyle/looking-haggadah- fits-family-11-164653582.html, picked up by Parade, Gossip Chimp, Clayton News Daily, Henry Herald, Kilgore News Herald, Tyler Morning Telegraph, Longview News-Journal, Victoria, Longview, Panola Watchman (they love me in Texas!), and The Rockdale Citizen. - Finally, last night I was a guest on New York Shakespeare's Instagram Live show, which was a blast: https://www.instagram.
com/p/CqmPZMiqbqR/
By
Martin Bodek
I recently published the second folio of The Shakespeare Haggadah, and the question I’ve been most frequently receiving is, “Why?”
To this, I reply, “Can you phrase that in Elizabethan English, please?”
As the questioner stammers back with “Whyeth?” or “Whyfore?”, I then volunteer a little bit of history, so that they understand the full picture, and I launch into an elevator speech that goes something like this:
Deep breath, aaaaaaaaand:
A long time ago, in a galaxy right here haggadot were generally gorgeously-wrought masterpieces of artistic expression. This “era,” if you will, lasted for hundreds of years. This gave way to an era of less artistic – albeit highly useful – proliferation thanks to the godsend of the printing press. After this time came the next era of customized haggadot for all manner of movements, religious stripes, causes, activism, and advocacy. On the heels of this push came the late-20th century surge of scholarly works, which dove deeper into the text, and then deeper still. At the turn of the 21st century a new age began: the age of wildly creative versions of the classic haggadah, both those hewing to the original text and those departing, but with imagination and innovation.
Aaaaaaaaaand exhale.
I created The Shakespeare Haggadah in this era, which is still thriving, and looks like it will last a while. As a gentleman named Albert Einstein once said, “Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
I estimate – and this is debatable – that this era kicked off in 2007, when both Sammy Spider’s First Haggadah and 30 Minute Seder: The Haggadah That Blends Brevity With Tradition were published. The former targeted children’s interests; the latter targeted anyone whose attention span was shrinking along with the rest of human culture. Both perpetually rank rather high on Amazon.
This was immediately followed by the publication of Joyous Haggadah: A Children and Family Cartoon Haggadah, which continued to lay the groundwork for including children, and pulling them back and towards the seder table.
More haggadot continued to get published over the next decade that specifically targeted children, tweens, and teens, but the years 2017-2019 experienced an explosion of creativity and inclusivity.
These were, by my count and opinion: The excellent The (unofficial) Hogwarts Haggadah, The all-encompassing Welcome to the Seder: A Passover Haggadah for Everyone, the fully-inclusive The Kveller Haggadah: A Seder for Curious Kids (and their Grownups), and the gobsmackingly- beautiful The Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel.
Each of these mightily served further to invite and urge and welcome the entire family back to the seder table, with eagerness aroused by the new creative expressions they could hold in their hands and inhale with wonder while the master of ceremonies carried on with his duties.
Into this window of opportunity, I like to think that my The Emoji Haggadah helped to usher this movement along. My purpose was the same that had been established with the rest of the excellent new expressions: get that seder table brimming again, and the family talking, and enjoying, and geshmak-ing. The Emoji Haggadah still does very well, and it remains – as of this writing – the first, and still only, book written entirely in emoji. If that doesn’t get your children’s attention, perhaps my next three haggadot will.
I then published The Festivus Haggadah, targeting Gen X’s interest, and, surprisingly, Gen Y, who love Seinfeld and Friends, for some wildly inexplicable reason that escapes me.
I then published The Coronavirus Haggadah, because humanity needed comic relief in a bad way.
Finally, I wrote The Shakespeare Haggadah specifically for teenagers and college youth, because, in my view, they remain the most underserved market for haggadot. The adults have been catered to for almost a millennium; the children for at least a decade and half; let’s do something for our teens.
I have more haggadot in the works, and the answer to the original question posed is now very simple, after all this has been explained. The sum of the matter is: I write parody haggadot to enrich everyone’s seder, to promote inclusion for everyone, to foster family harmony, and to create a fun, loving atmosphere for my Jewish people, to the best of my ability and the talent given me.
Chag kasher v’sameach!
Martin Bodek is the author of The Emoji Haggadah, The Festivus Haggadah, The Coronavirus Haggadah, the recently re-published The Shakespeare Haggadah, several future haggadot and seven other books.
posted by Me @ 11:31 AM
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