Page 14 - Issue 23

Haggadah could make them weep with longing,” Tzur
added.

"The Passover Seder was a holiday of history, but they
felt that the Haggadah had to relate to the current
history around them."

Tzur recounted that at first, the Haggadah was a satirical
re-telling of the Passover story through the lens of daily
life on kibbutz. Despite this, it expressed deep
identification with the story of liberation.

"All the heroes of the Haggadah were members of the
kibbutz. Pharaoh was the person who organized manual
labor shifts on the kibbutz,” he explained. “They all had
a very deep feeling that they personally came out of
Egypt, from slavery to freedom.”

As the years went on, the Haggadot in the kibbutzim
diversified and developed, and new Haggadot were
reprinted every year.

"Since the invention of the printing press and up to
1960, there have been 7,000 printed Haggadot,” Tzur
said. “Of these, 700 are kibbutz Haggadot.”

“Every year people felt different, so every year there
was a new Haggadah,” he continued. “The Passover
Seder was a holiday of history, but the kibbutzniks felt
that the Haggadah had to relate to the history
happening around them. Even the religious kibbutzniks,
who would not change the traditional Haggadah, would
add an annual insert each year."