For All Of Your Seder and Pesach Week Dinner
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which quickly goes about smash-
ing the seder plate and pretty much
everything else in the large back-yard
tent where the celebration is taking
place.
Early on, Zeke senses the impend-
ing storm, and slips his Ecstasy into
his father's antacid.
Ira starts seeing biblical visions,
including a cantorial trio and a cameo
appearance by Moses.
Inspired by the visions, Ira fancies
himself a second Moses commanded
to lead his bickering tribe into a place
of harmony. The family members,
however, are not easily led by the
cantankerous, flawed and clearly high
patriarch.
Up to the beginning of these hal-
lucinations, the film is hard to beat as
an exercise in unabashed vulgarity.
One redeeming feature of the enter-
prise is the setting of the seder table,
drawn from the illustrations of Artur
Szyk's well-known Haggadah.
When Do We Eat? brings back som-
ber memories of It Runs in the Family,
the short-lived Kirk/Michael Douglas
movie of three years ago.
That one also featured three genera-
tions of a Jewish family, the Gombergs,
who are as dysfunctional as the
Stuckmans, but obscenely rich to boot.
By coincidence, the Gombergs also
have a seder from hell but somehow
are brought to understanding and love
at the fadeout.
After the sad experience of the
Douglas film, which sank without a
trace despite a big-name cast, it took
a certain foolhardy courage for direc-
tor Salvador Litvak, who co-wrote the
script with his wife Nina Davidovich,
to tackle the same story line and
antics in this film.
Among the better-known actors
trying to extract some measure of
credibility from the general hysteria
are Michael Lerner as the father,
Lesley Ann Warren as his wife and
Jack Klugman — who played Oscar in
television's The Odd Couple — as the
grandfather.
Other family members and guests
include Meredith Scott Lynn, Shiri
Appleby, Mili Avital, Ben Feldman,
Adam Lamberg, Max Greenfield,
Cynda Williams and Mark Ivanir. ❑
Complete Passover Dinners From
Appetizers To Our Fabulous Desserts I
When Do We Eat? is scheduled
to open Friday, April 21, at the
Birmingham 8 in downtown
Birmingham. Check your local
movie listings.
pi_46/6, cu a
Between The Pages
aMovei6t/
Ad)
t
New insights into the Haggadah
enhance the seder experience.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
H
aggadah & History (Jewish
Publication Society; $52.50)
by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi
gets readers ready for upcoming cel-
ebrations- by informing them about
the evolution of the Haggadah and its
role in diverse observances.
The author, who has been a profes-
sor of Jewish history and culture at
Columbia University, drew on his
academic knowledge to reach from
the 15th century to recent times. He
covers the Haggadah in many settings,
including its use in medieval Italy and
applications in an Israeli kibbutz.
Some 200 images from past
Haggadahs, which have been housed
in libraries at Harvard University
and the Jewish Theological Seminary,
make the ideas concrete. They also
give a sense of the scope of the Jewish
population and rituals.
Another book providing insight into
the Haggadah is Leading the Passover
Journey (Jewish Lights: $24.99) by
Rabbi Nathan Laufer. It offers a unify-
ing theory connecting the 15 parts of
the seder to the contemporary experi-
ence of the Passover story.
Rabbi Laufer, president emeritus
of the Wexner Heritage Foundation,
teaches and lectures about Jewish
identity and meaning and explains the
holiday in terms of the Jewish legacy
of survival, hope and redemption.
The book was planned especially for
those who conduct or have recitation
responsibilities in seders.
Serving as a companion to the
Haggadah is psychologist David
Arnow's book Creating Lively Passover
Between The Pages on page 58
jZ
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April 6 • 2006
57