Uncle Eli's Passover Haggadah [Paperback]

Eliezer Segal (Author), Bonnie Gordon-Lucas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

Every year Jewish families commemorate the ancient exodus from Egypt with a ritual Passover meal, or seder. It's an important religious event, but for children it can be, well, kind of a snooze. This one-of-a-kind haggadah will change that. Filled with zany characters, wacky rhymes, and humorous color illustrations, Eliezer Segal's lighthearted and very entertaining look at Passover traditions shows just how much fun a seder can be.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The haggadah like you've never seen it, as silly as it is reverent, as traditional as it is new. -- Los Angeles Times

This is the book to buy for all the kids coming to your seder this year -- Jewish World News, National Jewish Post and Opinion, March 1999

This is the book to buy for all the kids coming to your seder this year. -- Jewish World News, National Jewish Post

This special-for-kids, most fun ever Haggadah lives up to its name. -- Hadassah Magazine

Uncle Eli's Special-for-Kids' is the haggada like you've never seen it, as silly as it is reverent, as traditional as it is new -- Los Angeles Times, March 1999

Wacky and amusing..., with a non-conventional bent that only adds to its effectiveness. -- Calgary Jewish Free Press

With Dr. Seuss-style verse, the haggadah speaks to children in their own language. -- B'nai B'rith International Jewish Monthly

About the Author

Eliezer Segal holds a Ph.D in Talmud from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and serves as Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary. He is committed to bringing the fruits of academic research to wider audiences through his popular newspaper columns in the Calgary Jewish newspapers. He is married to Agnes Romer Segal and is father to three boys.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: No Starch Press; 1999 edition (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1886411263
• ISBN-13: 978-1886411265
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,068,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Teens > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism
  • #62 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Judaism > Haggadah

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Our Favorite Uncle", April 4, 1999

By 

[e-mail] Jerry (Irvine, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Uncle Eli's Passover Haggadah (Paperback)

About a week before our seder on the fourth night of Pesach, I already knew who our guests would be--family and friends with about 25 adults and 15 kids. Ages 2 yrs to 72! We spent a few nights with Uncle Eli: with some careful work we modified the story so that we turned it into a play with ourselves as the cast and the audience. We changed pronouns where necessary and assigned "roles," sometimes having people read alone or together or as an entire group. We added some amusing songs. Our guests are very secular, hardly observant Jewish people. During our half hour service, there was laughter, amusement, spontaneous glee, nonsense and general merriment. And yet we covered many of the main elements of the Passover story--without a single complaint or yawn! We began as a collection of invited guests, grew into a congregation of players in a musical-comedy and transformed ourselves into an intentional spiritual community celebrating Passover in a novel, fresh, totally enjoyable new way. Uncle Eli's special Haggadah with our modifications has done more than any other single experience in recent years to bring our entire little group of friends and family closer to feeling good about being observant Jews. What might have been just another obligatory yawner of a seder for a bunch of disaffected Jews was instead a remarkable evening of Judaism touching our hearts and minds through laughter and merriment. The kids got! The old folks got it! The Boomers got it! We all got it, Uncle Eli--and we love what you've contributed to Jewish life! B'shalom from Your friends in Irvine, CA

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Didn't work for our family, May 9, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Uncle Eli's Passover Haggadah (Paperback)

We have very young children (age 2 yrs and 4 yrs). This was too long for the 2 year old. The 4 year old liked it as a bedtime story, but it really didn't seem like something you could bring to the table and use as a guide for a Seder.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncle Eli's is a perfect gift!, May 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Uncle Eli's Passover Haggadah (Paperback)

What a warm and wonderful book! The illustrations are pure magic. The verse has a springy cadence that's fun to read aloud. I was tempted to call the publisher to ask what a "Gloogasaurus Zax" is (it was not in "Uncle Eli's Glossary") but I assume that will be in the next edition. I've heard that Uncle Eli has a Web site where one can listen to music too and read verse, but I don't know the URL.