A New Generation of Haggadah Art

Five Modern Artists Reinterpret the Exodus Story to Include Egged Buses, Stray Cats,
the George Washington Bridge and More...

The Eliyahu Sidi Haggadah (2007)

(Above left) Eliyahu Sidi, a Paris-born Israeli artist, draws on elements of regional folklore and contemporary life in Israel. Sidi’s art is representative of a tumultuous and varied life that includes hiding as a child during the Holocaust, living as a young boy in the newly established State of Israel, serving in Algeria as part of the French army and a stint as a dairy farmer in France. In the 1970s he moved to Israel, became Orthodox and produced numerous works inspired by biblical and Talmudic texts. The playful and colorful paintings are reminiscent of Shalom of Safed, incorporating Kabbalistic and esoteric images. But there’s a zaniness to them as well; they are as likely to feature stray cats and Egged buses as matzah and maror. Sidi’s illustrations are strongly related to the text, which is incorporated into 55 watercolors. In each one he photocopied the relevant lines of text and glued them to his paintings. Sidi was not averse to inserting humorous captions in English, French or Hebrew. How can one not smile at the phrase: “Don’t make bricks. Make Matsot”?

All My Bones Shall Speak Passover Haggadah (2000)

(Above right) Former New Orleans resident Barry Ivker uses layered paper and linoleum cuts to illustrate every paragraph of the Haggadah text. The series of 111 artworks, which took Ivker five years to complete, forms a visual commentary on the narrative. Ivker plays with darkness and light, using abstract shapes and lettering to tell the Exodus story. While many copies of the first printed edition of his Haggadah were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina, Ivker, who now lives in Alabama, managed to save the original artwork and has since reissued his Haggadah. Its name comes from the phrase in the Book of Psalms, included in the Nishmat prayer, said in the second half of the Seder. He dramatically evokes the custom of eating eggs at the beginning of the meal with a bright white egg on a black page and uses orange slices to portray the contemporary American custom of placing an orange on the Seder plate in honor of women.

Next page