A California-based start-up is aiming to make the traditional seder Haggadah more relevant by offering users the chance to create a text that incorporates everything from “Passover yoga poses” to poetry by Langston Hughes, all in a single book that includes traditional religious liturgy as well.
Currently Haggadot.com has more than 230 contributors who have added a total of 1,500 pieces of content. The site includes options for Ashkenazi and Sephardi families that include both traditions in one haggadah; poetry by A. E. Housman, and Yehuda Amichai’s reflections on the memorable Seder song, “Chad Gadya” (One Goat).
This year, the group has also launched a crowd-sourced Haggadah, called Neverending Haggadah, is a partnership with Schusterman Philanthropic Network. In the days leading up to Passover, users around the world are invited to contribute content to and download crowd-sourced Haggadah.
For American Jews, the Maxwell House haggadah is the most familiar. But recent years have seen a burst of new Haggadas that seek to reinterpret the Jewish exodus story and the narrative of redemption. This year’s new entries include The Bronfman Haggadah, written philanthropist Edgar Bronfman and illustrated by his artist wife Jan Aronson; Jane Kessler Petitjean’s The Artists Haggadah; as well as a new app called the Haggadah App, which retails for $4.99 on itunes.