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February 5, 2021

The 17th-Century German Former Minister Whose Illustrations Graced America’s Best-Known Haggadah

From an Amsterdam convert to Maxwell House.

Aware that Ashkenazi custom forbids the consumption of legumes on Passover, Maxwell House decided in 1932 to publish and distribute haggadot for the holiday—aiming to reassure Jews that coffee beans were not beans by either rabbinic or botanical standards. Henry Abramson tells the remarkable story of the artist behind the images reproduced in the early editions of this now-famous bilingual guide to the seder.

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