Examines how the celebration of Passover has changed, looks at its original form of observation, and discusses the religious texts concerning the holiday

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

"Although the idea of 'keeping Passover' has too often come to mean the strict observance of an unending string of ordinances, decrees, rules, regulations, testimonies, precepts, laws, and statutes, it can as well mean the safekeeping of something precious and worth preserving. Tradition should be like the ballast that keeps a ship steady in an ocean of constant stormy change." From one of the nation's leading Haggadah experts comes the ultimate guide to creating a faithful and personal seder celebration. Emphasizing "thou may" instead of "thou shalt," Steingroot presents all the traditional and alternative options. Keeping Passover explores: the meaning of the Passover symbols how to choose the right Haggadah food, cookbooks, and table arrangements music, recordings, and learning to sing the songs ways to involve children the art of keeping Passover fresh every year Keeping Passover is a much needed and highly accessible resource offering a rich assortment of methods -- from simple to elaborate, traditional to innovative -- to enhance, preserve, and celebrate the seder.

After the Bible, the Passover haggadah is the most widely read classic text in the Jewish tradition. More than four thousand editions have been published since the late fifteenth century, but few are as exquisite as the Washington Haggadah, which resides in the Library of Congress. Now, a stunning facsimile edition meticulously reproduced in full color brings this beautiful illuminated manuscript to a new generation. Joel ben Simeon, the creator of this unusually well-preserved codex, was among the most gifted and prolific scribe-artists in the history of the Jewish book. David Stern’s introduction reconstructs his professional biography and situates this masterwork within the historical development of the haggadah, tracing the different forms the text took in the Jewish centers of Europe at the dawn of modernity. Katrin Kogman-Appel shows how ben Simeon, more than just a copyist, was an active agent of cultural exchange. As he traveled between Jewish communities, he brought elements of Ashkenazi haggadah illustration to Italy and returned with stylistic devices acquired during his journeys. In addition to traditional Passover images, realistic illustrations of day-to-day life provide a rare window into the world of late fifteenth-century Europe. This edition faithfully preserves the original text, with the Hebrew facsimile appearing in the original right-to-left orientation. It will be read and treasured by anyone interested in Jewish history, medieval illuminated manuscripts, and the history of the haggadah.

"This telling of the life of the Haggadah, probably the most beloved of books that Jews own, chronicles its recalibrations over time. It moves from its early sources in the Bible and rabbinic literature; to the years it was a handwritten manuscript; to its life as an illuminated book in the middle ages; to its emergence as mass-produced printed book and later, as an artist's book; to its iterations in the twentieth century in America and Israel, including those using emerging technologies of our day. It is the story of a liturgical text came about to fulfill a biblical injunction to fathers to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt to their children (literally, to their sons): "And you shall tell your son on that day, 'It is because of what the Lord did for me when I went free from Egypt'" (Exodus 13:8). Despite significant flaws in the text that have occasioned thousands of revisions, it remains well and alive because it allows its users to transmit the story of Exodus as if it happened to them. With a Haggadah in hand at a Passover seder meal, the text kindles the memory of belonging to a people who knew slavery and then liberation and enlivens empathy. An engagement with the Haggadah, inevitable leaves one feeling responsible for helping others to achieve their own liberation".

Passover and Easter constitute for Jews and Christians respectively two of the most important religious festivals of the year. This volume concentrates on the contexts in which they occur - the periods of preparation for the feasts and their connection to Shavuot and Pentecost.