The little book every person gets at the Passover sedar is called a haggadah. ("Huh-gáh-duh.") This year, prolific author (and prolific Hebrew) Jonathan Safran Foer released his own version with updated translations and explanations and bits and pieces, called–easily enough–The New American Haggadah.
Frankly, for a book that includes a section on how to explain Passover traditions to "the simple son," the book seems unnecessarily long. And pricey, but that's a bit of a negative stereotype rearing it's head.
Except it's really accurate. About a week ago a woman refused to buy such a book in our store because the online price was cheaper. Yes, but it's cheaper to compensate for shipping. And you won't get it for a week. Buy the one shipped here and transport is done and paid for by the list price. NOPE WE DON'T WANT TO THINK ABOUT THAT NO SIR.
A few days later I personally met a gentleman who asked for the "New American Haga-duh." Like a young mensch's stuttering, puttering, 1940s exclamation at the site of a pretty lady, right before he turns into a wolf in a Zoot suit and his eyes bugged out of his skull: "Haga-uh haga-duh haga-duh!"
Considering my family has the most gutter-trash dialects of both Italian and Yiddish, I was still puzzling as to whether he simply had an off-pronunciation or wasn't Jewish by birth, when he answered the question for me by asking–unprompted and without any visible cue or remote cause to imply such a possibility–if by any chance the large and hardbound book happened to be on sale.
Bravo, fellow Israelites. You have successfully managed once again to portray us as Venetian merchants even more negatively than Al Pacino. Thanks loads.
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