The period before Passover each year marks celebration of Purim, and of the Jewish people’s triumph over the genocidal designs of Haman in ancient Persia; and preparation for Pesach itself, including a review of the freedom-from-Pharaoh’s-slavery-in-ancient-Egypt story in the Haggadah, and, often, purchase of new Haggadot.

Here is a brief look at some of the new Haggadot that are being published in 5786, or were published too late last year for wide distribution (partly reflecting a growing trend of independently published Haggadot with fewer promotion or distribution resources than established publishers):

Haggadah Shel Erev Rav: The Mixed Multitude Haggadah. Central Synagogue/CCAR Press. Art by Siona Benjamin. 112 pps. $25.95.

This is a Haggadah for a feminist, progressive, egalitarian crowd. Produced by Central Synagogue, a prominent Reform congregation in Manhattan, in partnership with the Reform movement’s rabbinical arm, it features the sometimes-truncated text in Hebrew and English and transliteration; commentaries by members of the synagogue’s rabbinical staff; explanations of the Haggadah’s readings and rituals, and the evocative full-color drawings by Indian Jewish artist Siona Benjamin.

The Haggadah’s title refers to the “mixed multitude” of non-Jewish Egyptians who accompanied Bnei Israel out of Egypt – and often are referenced by the Sages as a group of individuals who had a deleterious effect on the actions and spiritual level of the Jewish people. This Haggadah gives the erev rav a more-welcoming, more-positive spin.

The Haggadah, which marks the 20th anniversary of Rabbi Angela Buchdahl as the synagogue’s spiritual leader, is geared to the needs and sensitivities of an ethnically- and racially-diverse readership, reflecting her congregation’s composition, Rabbi Buchdahl, the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and as a cantor in the US, writes in the preface. She cites, with praise, the ethnic composition of the Jewish people, which includes Sephardim and Ashkenazim, LGBT individuals, Jews of color and Jews-by-choice, and “the full inclusion of women.”

“That multiplicity is not a modern invention – it has been with us since the exodus itself,” the rabbi writes, explaining the Haggadah’s focus. “From our very beginning as Am Yisrael, we were not a monolith but a mosaic. This new Haggadah … celebrates that sacred multivocality.”

The translations were handled by Rabbi Janet Marder, rabbi emerita of Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills, CA, and Rabbi Sheldon Marder, department head of Jewish Life at the Jewish Home of San Francisco; the editing was done by Rabbi Sarah Berman, director of Jewish culture and programming at Central Synagogue.264

Star Trek: The Exodus Directive: The Hagaddah that Takes Us Where No Matzah Has Gone Before. Rivka Bresler. Independently published. 168 pps. $15.99.

The original 5-year mission of the starship Enterprise to explore new worlds and new civilizations has lasted six decades, spawning a series of TV shows, movies, novels and other expressions of popular culture.

Star Trek has reached the Jewish world. Though Star Trek has no clear Jewish roots (despite the ethnic background of many of its star actors, its producers, and the Vulcan greeting patterned after the blessing-bestowing Kohanim), the Star Trek message of inclusivity has over the years been the subject of many rabbis’ essays and sermons.

Bresler, an Orthodox day school teacher in Baltimore (at Beth Tfiloh Congregation, which she had attended), and self-declared Star Trek aficionado, finds many parallels between the themes of the seder and those of the sci-fi franchise’s many iterations. For instance, “oppression and liberation, memory and destiny, sacrifice and leadership, identity and renewal.” She has found inspiration in the many Star Trek TV shows and movies that have followed the premiere of the original series – TOS to devoted fans — in 1966.

“Each part of the Seder, from Kadesh to Nirtzah, serves as a waypoint in our voyage through memory and meaning … as we recline, dip, question, sing, and eat, we do what every Star Trek crew does – honor the past, confront the present, and imagine a better future,” she writes in the Haggadah’s introduction. “Much like the captain’s log at the beginning of every Star Trek episode, the Seder gives our journey context, purpose, and direction … Let all who are hungry come and eat. Resistance is futile.”

“I love Star Trek,” she writes in the introduction. “And I love Pesach.” She watched Star Trek, “The Next Generation,” while growing up, and attended two Star Trek conventions, and wearing matching Star Trek uniforms with her father, sewn by her mother, on Purim.

How did her interest grow into a “deeply enjoyable creative project”?

It was the logical thing to do, she says. “A few years ago, while attending a seder at my sister’s house, one of her friends brought a Harry Potter Haggadah and I could see his excitement at using it and sharing it with other fans at the table. I turned to my husband and said that next year, I wanted to buy a Star Trek Haggadah.

“When I searched and realized one didn’t exist,” she says, “I decided I would write one myself. How hard could it possibly be? As it turns out, quite hard!”

Bresler’s creation, which includes many emojis and drawing of well-known Star Trek figures in seder settings, boasts that it “takes us where no matzah has been before” – i.e., interpretation of the seder themes through a Star Trek lens. Respectful of Jewish tradition, she offers the standard words of the Haggadah in Hebrew, and the English-language text highlighted in red … in addition to commentaries with a Star Trek insight into many parts of the seder, the words of the Ma Nishtana in such tongues as Vulcan and Klingon and Ferengi, and the songs at the end of the seder rendered with a Star Trek twist.

The Aliens Haggadah/The Aliens Chronicles: A Fantasy Tale of Slavery from Across the Galaxy. Michael Kagan. Illustrations by Daphna Rosin. Edited by Jonatan Lubell. Urim Publishers, Scopus films, Ktav Publishing House. 41/53 pps. $31.

“This Haggadah,” the cover states, “is two books.” One, for people at the seder who prefer to spend leil seder with familiar text. And one, for people with a science fiction bent, who wish to celebrate the holiday about the Jewish past with art and readings centered around an imaginary future.

The books – the Haggadah from right to left, the Chronicles from left to right, are, respectively, a traditional text, with Hebrew and transliterations; and a thinly-disguised sci-fi tale that parallels the well-known Jewish story of liberation. The two are separated by a full-color double spread of non-humanoids aboard a spaceship sitting around a seder table.

The story related in the Haggadah’s pages is “a fantasy tale from across the galaxy about the Deveshniks, who are forced to abandon Planet Devesh due to famine caused by environmental collapse. They find a home on Planet Kemet, where their skills and energy-dense ChaIm trees are much prized. But after a new king arises, the Deveshniks’ situation deteriorates.”

And so on … following the template of the Children of Israel in Egypt. Major characters in the narrative include Mos-El (i.e., Moses) King Rami II (Pharaoh Raamses), Ar-On (Aaron) and Yos-El (Joseph). A Kemet visa featured in the book has an expiration star date of 2448 – corresponding to the year in the Hebrew calendar when the exodus from Egypt took place. There are “Calamities” –water pollution, allergens, scorching heat – that correspond to the biblical Plagues. And a seder plate that features such items as “a roasted twig of a Chaim tree” and “Black Kemetian mud.”

The Deveshniks’ history, according to the author, was contained in “extraordinary documents … discovered a number of years ago in the wreckage of what appears to be an alien spacecraft near the Dead Sea. They were written on a brittle, wafer-like material that clearly does not originate on Earth.”

For the sake of readers who do not make the connection between the Haggadah’s sci-fi context and the familiar biblical exploits of Bnei Israel, the Haggadah helpfully includes extensive notes that fill in the Torah version of events.

Echoes of Egypt: A Haggada. Joshua Berman. Koren Publishers. 156 pps. $29.95.

People attending a seder are supposed to see themselves leaving Egypt during the exodus. This Haggadah makes that easier.

With commentaries and explanations by Rabbi Berman, a professor of Bible at Bar-Ilan University in Israel who specializes in biblical narrative – he stresses that a knowledge of “the cultural context” of the ancient Middle East aids one’s understanding of events depicted in the Torah – the Haggadah puts the reader into the world of the Pharaohic kingdom of 3,300 years ago.

The rabbi’s Haggadah, which looks at ancient Egypt through a modern lens, combines text with a wide array of photographs and illustrations – of sculptures and statues, rulers and commoners, gods and worshipped animals, hieroglyphics and idols and tombs – to visually depict the pagan culture in which the Children of Israel were enslaved.

“In this haggada the images are part and parcel of the commentary,” Rabbi Berman writes in the Haggadah’s acknowledgements. That presented a challenge for the creators of a product to be used by members of a religious community. “Egyptian art has many virtues, but modesty is not always one of them.” The goal of Rabbi Berman and his collaborators on the Haggadah: “every photo … fit for print in every way.”

This Haggadah is s virtual art catalog of ancient Egypt.

“Echoes of Egypt” is a fit successor to Koren’s 2025 “The Promise of Liberty” Haggadah, by Stuart Halpern and Jacob Kubietzky, which seamlessly combined the seder’s theme of freedom with major events in US history.

The new Haggadah, which also presents useful maps of Egypt and its region, is part of Koren’s “Tanakh of the Land of Israel” series that incorporates recent archaeological findings and Egyptology with modern scholarship and studies of the ancient world.

“This haggada is the result.” It’s for someone who wants, via history and geography and theology, to expand beyond the traditional commentaries offered in most Haggadot.

The rabbi writes that he is following the advice of Maimonides “to understand as much as he can about ancient Near Eastern culture … the Rambam also suggests that ancient context is necessary for understanding certain passages of the Torah.”

Haggadahpalooza: The Unofficial Weirdly Perfect Passover Pop Parody Panoply. Martin Bodek. Lulu.com. 222 pps. $19.95.

From the author of annual, satirical, tongue-in-cheek Haggadah parodies, comes the latest edition – this time, in the style of familiar songs’ lyrics.

Bodek, an IT specialist who lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, and has turned his Pesach imagination in recent years to such parody-able topics as COVID, Seinfeld and “Dad jokes” [the latter is an outlet for his shameless punning], now offers the standard Haggadah text ala such musical styles as rock ‘n roll, country, and show tunes.

A knowledgeable Orthodox Jew, Bodek knows his Pesach stuff – he is faithful both to Jewish tradition, and to the music world.

A writer of proven ability in humor, he has not passed over an opportunity to exercise his comedic muscles. Including in the contents of the seder plate. For example, karpas — “Always Something Here to Romaine Me.” (Lettuce us not criticize his language.)

Bodek in these pages, through 56 take-offs of recognized pieces of music in a variety of genres, pays homage to the artistry of “Weird Al” Yankovic, the acknowledged master of musical parodies.

Some samples of his creativity:

On the number of Plagues that the Haggadah says took place in the Red Sea – “Rav Akiva steps to the plate/To offer his own thoughts of his brand/Five he estimates (Oy-Yay-Oy)/Were each of the plagues that HaShem planned.”

On the Four Sons – A salute to the Beatles. “Here Come The Sons: Here come the sons/Doo doo doo doo/Here come the sons and I say/This is why.”

To fully appreciate the parodied parts of text, it would be helpful to thoroughly know the Haggadah, as well as the musical artist’s work being parodied.

“I hustled to include as many varied musical acts and genres as possible, for maximum entertainment,” Bodek writes in the Haggadah’s introduction. “There’s a bias for music I love that batters around in my head all the time.”

The 2nd Trump Passover Haggadah. Dave Cowen. Cowen Parody Haggadahs. 80 pps. $9.99.

In 2018, Cowen, a Los Angeles-based writer and film projectionist who ranks with Martin Bodek as the master of the Haggadah parody, produced a Haggadah centered around the presidency of Donald Trump.

In 2026, another Trump administration, another Trump Haggadah. With all new material. And a very long subtitle: “People All The Time They Tell Me This Haggadah’s Better Than The Last One, It’s For The Jews Who Love What Trump’s … Say You Don’t, Deep Down, I Know It’s True”

The Haggadah’s cover, which features an illustration of Trump a la Charlton Heston splitting the Red Sea, offers an ambiguous by(and not by )line: by and not by Dave Cowen. Which makes clear that this is not a DJT-authorized Haggadah.

“I hoped I’d never have to do another Trump [Haggadah],” Cowen says in an email interview. But, he says, events in the last year required it. “I felt called to answer 2026 with a satirical response to what’s going on right now for Jews in America.”

His Haggadah includes, in addition to topical AI memes, references to:

·       A presidential advisor — Hi everyone, I’m Stephen Miller, 39-year-old Homeland Security Advisor to President Trump, I’m Jewish, from Santa Monica, California, I love removing illegal immigrants from America’s homeland, and I’m here to do the removal of the Hametz, which is leavened bread products, from your home land.

·       Democrats — BERNIE SANDERS: Does anyone else think if I was allowed to be nominated for President by the Democrats in 2016, I would have won, and this all could have been avoided?

·       JOE BIDEN: Yeah, sure, man, but they should’ve let me run again in 2004, er I mean 2024, I forget. KAMALA HARRIS: Don’t look at me. I had no prep.

Cowen’s anti-Trump politics are clear, but he is faithful to the Haggadah, including all the standard readings and rituals.

HAGGADAT BENE HORIN: A Humanistic Haggadah for Pesach. Martin Hassan di Maggio. Independently published. 43 pps. $9.99. 

The name of Moses, the prophet who led the enslaved Children of Israel out of Egypt is prominently, virtually absent from a traditional Haggadah – aside from a single mention in an excerpt from a biblical verse about the seder’s theme of freedom.

This humanistic Haggadah reverses that tradition. No mention of G-d, Who is supposed to be the focus of the seder night. And no berachot – none, at least, in their usual Hebrew or English forms. Don’t look here for a Haggadah’s familiar blessings. Not, at least, as commonly understood, that invoke a Creator.

G-d, after all, is not part of a humanist’s universe. The non-theistic humanistic creed emphasizes human reason and social justice over religion or supernatural belief.

Hence, this Haggadah for people who identify as humanists. It is the latest in a series of humanistic Haggadot that have appeared over the decades.

In his, di Maggio, a linguistic anthropologist and leader in Humanistic Judaism UK who has also written a humanist-oriented siddur, stresses what he sees as the non-theistic elements of Judaism.  “This is not just a story of the Israelites, but is also symbolic of all people who have struggled and still struggle for freedom,” he writes in the introduction. “Passover is an opportunity to liberate ourselves from what holds us back.”

As for blessings (over the cups of wine, and the matzah), the Haggadah phrases them as baruch ha’ohr b’chayim (blessed is the light in life … ) or “n’verarech … “ (Let us bless…).

This Haggadah, featuring the seder’s main rituals and – greatly rewritten from a humanistic perspective – readings, but in a shorter, truncated fashion, include some verses in Ladino, as well as an orange on the seder plate and Miriam’s cup at the table.

By the way, Moses’s name (actually, Moshe) appears nine times in this Haggadah.

The Revealed Haggadah: A concise Seder table companion based on The Broken Haggadah. Seder Educational Media. 84 pps. $38.95.

For a seder participant interested in the historical roots of the familiar seder night readings and rituals, this is the ideal Haggadah.

No single author is listed as the book’s compiler or editor; rather, it is a collection, accompanied by a limited number of useful charts and illustrations, of the Haggadah’s development over the centuries, attributed to “the master Rav Achai Gaon z”l [his memory should be a blessing],” an 8th-Century talmudic scholar in the land of Israel. This Haggadah is the creation of Seder Educational Media, a St. Louis organization that calls itself “committed to transforming the world’s understanding and appreciation for the traditional text of the Passover Haggadah.”

This Haggadah’s source is a text it calls “The Broken Haggadah,” the insights of which, on the standard Haggadah’s contents and symbolism, were “hidden in the text for over a thousand years.”

The purpose of this Haggadah is “to present evidence that a single author,” Rav Achai Gaon, “shaped the traditional text of Maggid [which constitutes the bulk of a Haggadah’s readings] used today,” the authors state in the introduction. And it seeks “to enrich the reader’s Seder by revealing the Haggadah’s sophisticated hidden design.”

This Haggadah’s contribution is to put the apparently disparate sources into an accessible, coherent – and not threateningly scholarly – form that can be used by a layman and Talmud chacham.

Of most interest, arguably, are this Haggadah’s unique explanations of such seder features as the Four Cups of wine, the Four Questions, and the seder plate.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)