Authors Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander have collaborated on “New American Haggadah” (pictured), just published by Little, Brown and Company, a new edition of the Passover narrative.
It features a timeline of Jewish history and ongoing commentary from four writers, among them “Lemony Snicket” (the pen name for best-selling author Daniel Handler).
Commentaries are listed as “Playground,” practical and humorous wisdom from Snicket/Handler; “Library,” a literary/psychological perspective from Rebecca Newberger Goldstein; “Nation,” political observations by Jeffrey Goldberg; and “House of Study,” philosophical and religious takes by Nathaniel Deutsch. Joining past to present is their commitment.
Snicket says the requirement to spill 10 drops of wine, one for each plague, is a way to “remember the suffering of the Egyptians.”
The standard Passover book remains Maxwell House Haggadah, which has more than 50 million copies in print.