Birkat Chaverim Blog

The current holiday season has given me a great opportunity to talk about the new edition of The Szyk Haggadah. Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) originally published his haggadah, a richly illuminated edition in gouache and watercolor, in 1940. It was printed in an edition of 250 and signed by Szyk and the historian Cecil Roth, who also provided an introduction and commentary. Subsequently the haggadah was reprinted in less expensive editions in Israel and could be found in many Jewish homes throughout the world.

Recently, Historicana, under the direction of Irvin Ungar, created a new edition of the haggadah with permission from the collector who owns the original Haggadah artwork and Arthur Szyk’s daughter, Alexandra Szyk Bracie. This version of the Haggadah uses current technology for extremely vivid illustration photos, and includes a new translation and commentary by Byron L. Sherwin, and a companion volume, Freedom Illuminated: Understanding The Szyk Haggadah.

I had the privilege of speaking with Professor Shalom Sabar, from the Jewish Folklore and Art History faculties at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, who is one of the contributors to the companion volume, and in interviewing him, by email. Continue reading »

This project is similar to the felt latkes we made for Chanukkah. Easy to do by hand or by machine. In the case of felt matzot, matzahs or matzos (choose your  preferred spelling ), they also need to be “browned”. We did this with brown felt marker but I kept thinking about using rectangular erasers and paint.

These are pretty self explanitory- cut matzah to taste (round, square, misshapen etc.) sew to taste (only around edges, in a spiral, whatever), decorate to taste, refine to taste.
See also:

Make your own Haggadah

Other people’s Pesach ideas

I was just motivated to write this Pesach post by a great facebook group started by a friend called “Great Seder Ideas for Kids!” There are lots of great ideas and looking at who is posting you can see a great many people who have been involved in informal and formal education. So really many many creative ideas.

Their website Sicha Basadeh is also a growing resource for educational materials. For Pesach there are coloring sheets and other materials related to baking matzah.

Chinuch.org is always a good place to find fun Pesach activities- we will be doing the “Look at Me” Hagaddah and the Rod of Moshe.

When I was in sixth grade we did a unit on Egypt and did a little “museum.” I think I made a chariot and one of my classmates created names using hieroglyphics. That could be a fun pre-Pesach activity. See Wikipedia for some examples.

I will be posting craft ideas and other stuff as Pesach approaches.

Note: The Matzah making machine photo courtesy of Wikimedia commons from The Lviv Museum of the History of Religion under a sharealike license.

One idea for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah is to learn about the Haggadah and create your own commentary and illustrations. A useful resource for this is the Open Source Haggadah project. Although the project is officially over, the website still provides access to the Haggadah text as well as extra resources that may be useful in creating ones own haggadah.

Updated: I just noticed that Graphos has a special promotion for Pesach. You can create your own Haggadah with your own pictures. They have a one free per family promotion. The coupon code, 4701C20333 is good through March 15, 2010.