Customer Reviews

A Survivors' Haggadah

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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I saw a copy of this beautiful book at a friend's seder and was immediately struck by Miklos Adler's dramatic woodcuts. The book's cover image as well as one interior piece of a Nazi guard taking a boy from his mother were the two I found most moving. Saul Touster has written a wonderful introduction and provides interesting commentary on the original haggadah throughout the book. If you missed Pesach this year, be sure to purchase a copy for next year. This book should be a part of every family's seder.

This haggadah was recommended to me by a child of survivors on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The haggadah is beautifully illustrated with haunting, black and white wood cuts and written in Yiddish and Hebrew. An English commentary is on the facing pages. Unless you are proficient in Yiddish and Hebrew, this might not be the haggadah you use at Passover. However, it could be an invaluable addition to your celebration.

This haggadah gives critical insight into the condition of displaced persons after the war, how the misery of the Jews continued even after Hitler. But it also testifies to the courage of people who, though perhaps somewhat doubful of G-d, nevertheless celebrated their first Passover in freedom. Well worth your time.

This Haggadah is described by the original author as a "musaf" (supplementary material), rather than as a Haggadah. While I personally would not use it as a complete Haggadah for Pesach, I give the book a 5 out of 5 - and I would give it more if I could - because it is an absolutely wonderful piece of literature. I cannot imagine anybody reading even a single page of it and not being moved. It has a very informative (30+ page) introduction about the post-Holocaust situation of the surviving Jews. It is also full of wonderful poetry and artwork, created by victims both during and after the Holocaust, that brought tears to my eyes. Even if this book is never used as a Haggadah, I think that every Jew should own it.

For those who want a traditional Haggadah - this isn't it! However, the Survivors' Haggadah can definitely be used for supplemetary material by EVERYONE. For those who are not concerned with having a traditional Haggadah, but who want to have a meaningful and relevant Passover experience, or for those who simply want a good read, this book will definitely be of interest to you as well.

In the Survivors' Haggadah, there were a few conserved elements from the traditional Haggadot, such as the four questions (though not the answers to them), and a few key phrases, such as: "In every generation they have risen against us and tried to destroy us..." and "In each generation, we should regard ourselves as if we ourselves came out of Egypt." This haggadah does not contain the blessings for the wine, the explanations for the Paschal lamb or why we eat matzah, or any mention of the ten plagues. It contains a great amount of new material relevant to the Holocaust that is not present in traditional haggadot. It also contains modified versions of several recognizable parts of the traditional Haggadah text, but the meaning of the modified version is usually quite different from that of the traditional text. For example, the answer offered for why we eat bitter herbs is: "Because we were intoxicated by the incense of Diaspora ... Because we did little to help ourselves and reestablish our destroyed homes and country." The message of this Haggadah's version of the four sons is not the telling of the story of Passover, but the insistence on the right to a homeland. Some blessings that are addressed to G-d in the traditional Haggadah are addressed to the Allied Forces in the Survivors' Haggadah. The most difficult reading in this Haggadah, for me, was "Dayenu", which is presented as a list of atrocities that G-d allowed to be carried out against the Jews, rather than a list of things we thank G-d for. Though this reading made me feel very uncomfortable (and irreverant!), it gave me insight into the survivor experience that years of Hebrew school and personal study did not provide.

I feel I am richer for having read "A Survivors' Haggadah.". I cannot stress enough how much I love this book.