Arts & Entertainment
Seder Solutions
Check out these new Passover guides and Haggadot to bring new vitality to your seders.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
S
eders can retain the basics while
taking new directions every
year as publishers turn out new
texts and Haggadot. Here are the latest
with comfort, fun and diet-smart recipes
among the pages:
• Pesach for the
Rest of Us: Making
the Passover Seder
Your Own by Marge
Piercy (Schocken;
$22.95) gives the
fiction and poetry
writer a chance
to reveal why the
holiday is her favorite. Besides including
explanations for the traditions, she offers
poetic impressions that carry readers into
her personal spirituality, opens up the
possibilities of the seder table and shares
family recipes, all in the hope that readers
will fashion their own homemade, highly
personal seder.
•And You Thought
There Were Only
Four by Joe Bobker
(Gefen Publishing
House; $14.95)
multiplies the four
classic Passover
questions to 400,
with the promise
they will make
your seder enlightening, educational and
enjoyable. ("Did all the Jews willingly par-
ticipate in the Exodus from Egypt?" "No.
The Torah admits that only one in five
Jews were sufficiently adventurous and
imbued with faith to take up the challenge
of emancipation.") The author, who has
been publisher and editor-in-chief of the
Los Angeles Jewish Times, built a career on
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Jews At The Bat
The start of the Major League base-
ball season and Passover are two
annual milestones that proclaim
spring is finally
here. This year,
baseball's opening
day, April 2, coin-
cides with the date
of the first Passover
seder.
Following is a
Jason Marquis
list of this season's
Jewish Major
Leaguers as compiled by Jewish
Sports Review, the only publication
that contacts players to verify they
are Jewish.
There are no Jewish rookies this
year, and Boston's Gabe Kapler
recently decided to retire to pursue
a managing career. Also, Red Sox
pitcher Craig Breslow, who has been
in a couple of Major League games,
was sent down to the minors on
March 16.
All the players listed below have at
least one Jewish parent, were either
raised Jewish or without religion
56
March 29 • 2007
asking questions and brings that outlook
to the holiday.
• Telling the
Story: A Passover
Haggadah
Explained,
adapted by Barry
Louis Polisar
(Rainbow Morning
Music; $7.95), is
a Haggadah that
tells about holiday
rituals in simple terms and presents the
prayers in English and Hebrew with pho-
netic pronunciations. Although the author
usually writes for children, he planned
this for adults as well.
• The Storybook Haggadah by Seymour
Rossel (Pitspopany Press; $9.95) is for
children ages 7-10. Written in English and
Hebrew by a rabbi, the book moves from
right to left and is recommended as an
and don't follow a faith other than
Judaism.
Suiting up for 2007 are Kevin
Youkilis (Boston); Ian Kinsler and
Scott Feldman (Texas Rangers); Scott
Schoeneweis and Shawn Green (New
York Mets); Jason Marquis (Chicago
Cubs); Mike Lieberthal (Los Angeles
Dodgers); John Grabow (Pittsburgh)
and Jason Hirsch (Colorado).
Breaking Out
Opening Friday, March 30, is the
film The Lookout. Joseph Gordon-
Levitt co-stars as a
young man whose
"perfect" life was
destroyed when, in
high school, he's
in an accident that
leaves him mentally
impaired. Now, a few
Joseph
years out of school,
Gordon-Levitt
he works as a night
janitor in a bank and
shares an apartment with a blind
man (played by Michigan's own Jeff
Daniels).
A high-school acquaintance wants
Gordon-Levitt's character to help
him rob the bank, and he hires an ex-
stripper (Isla Fisher) to "soften up"
the impaired young man.
Most people still remember
Gordon-Levitt, 26, as the teenager
Tommy Solomon on TV's 3rd Rock
from the Sun. But
the Jewish actor
has built a respect-
able career since in
indie films (including
last year's hit Brick),
and The Lookout
is a good jump for
Isla Fisher
him into mainstream
Hollywood flicks.
Fisher, 31, is being touted as one
of the next big Hollywood actresses
after her success in The Wedding
Crashers. In this month's Interview
magazine, there's
an interview with
Fisher titled, "What
a Mentsh: Isla
Fisher Converts
to Stardom." The
title references her
soaring career and
Jonathan
her recent conver-
Tucker
sion to Judaism in
advance of mar-
rying Borat comedian Sacha Baron
Cohen.
The same Interview issue has
introduction to the
holiday or for use at
the seder table. The
blessings and order
of the service are
the same as in any
Haggadah, but this
one tells the narrative
from a child's point of
view and is illustrated for children.
' STORYBOOK
HAGGADAH
-
7;7
• Please, Don't Pass
Over the Seder
Plate: A Haggadah
for the Young and
Young-at-Heart
by Harriet Goldner
(Jewish Family Fun;
$8.95) is the work of
a grandmother who
could not find the book she wanted for
her own family. She includes the message
of the holiday supplemented by verse and
lots of illustrations.
a fashion photo spread featuring
Jonathan Tucker, 24, the star of the
new TV series The Black Donnellys.
Tucker just told a TV reporter that
his father is Irish Catholic and his
mother is Jewish, but no word on
how he was raised.
Shining On
Opening March 30 at the Maple Art
Theatre in Bloomfield Township is
the comedic film Color Me Kubrick,
starring John Malkovich as a London
con artist who pretends to be the
famous director Stanley Kubrick —
although he looks almost nothing like
Kubrick and doesn't
know much about his
films.
Kubrick is based
on a true story. In
real life, the con
man's game was
first exposed by New
Marisa
York Times columnist
Berenson
Frank Rich and his
Jewish wife, Times reporter Alex
Witchel. Both are prominent charac-
ters in the movie; Alex is played by
the ever beautiful Marisa Berenson,
61, whose late father was Jewish.