Local dad’s ‘pandemic hobby’ is coming to fruition this Passover

Four years ago, when much of the world shut down due to the pandemic, Skokie-based Jacob Kupietzky his family were unable to attend large family seders with his parents and in-laws.

“I realized there was no one to lead the seder and it was up to me,” Kupietzky recalled, “with my wife Edy taking part.”

Kupietzky’s oldest children had just started high school and his youngest was in middle school. He poured over Haggadot and other Jewish sources, searching for material that could engage his kids in the family’s pared-down seder. “I started buying every Haggadah I could find, looking for something that connected more to them and to us as American Jews: I wanted to make this story more relevant.”

In the end, he concluded, “What I was looking for didn’t exist.”

Instead, the Kupietzkys created a massive Jeopardy game to play at their seders, challenging their kids to identify Jewish quotes and ideas they’d learned in their Jewish schools, and drawing on wider themes of freedom and American history.”

Hamilton

That’s when he began working on his own Haggadah, which he called The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggadah , incorporating elements from his family’s game as commentaries on the Haggadah’s traditional text. The many stories, photos, essays, and quotes resonate in profound ways with the text.

In the opening section of the Haggadah, when we invite “all who are in need” to join our seder, is accompanied by a poignant letter from Private Joseph A. Joel of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment describing a seder in 1862, when 20 Jewish soldiers gathered together during wartime: “There in the wild woods of West Virginia, away from home and friends, we consecrated and offered up to the ever-loving G-d of Israel our prayers and sacrifice….”

Accompanying text about our ancestors’ slavery in Egypt, Kupietzky’s Haggadah includes pictures of Harriet Tubman and Dr. Martin Luther King, descriptions of the Underground Railroad, and words to the spiritual Go down Moses.

Original essays by former Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Dr. Erica Brown, Laura Adkins, Rabbi David Wolpe, Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, and others elucidate themes of freedom at the Haggadah’s conclusion.

Kupietzky collaborated with Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern, senior advisor to the provost and senior program officer of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. Together, they assembled the groundbreaking work, drawing on Jewish and secular ideas and contributors.

“Everyone can pick this up and find something to share at the table,” Kupietzky said. “It’s appropriate for all ages and is meant for all demographics.”

They sent the final draft to Koren Press shortly before Hamas’ horrific October 7 attack. Kupietzky made the decision to donate all proceeds from sales of the Haggadah to the international nonprofit Israel education organization StandWithUs. All proceeds will help StandWithUs create and distribute educational curricula to students.

Kupietzky explains that ties in with one of the core values of Passover: “Teach your children.”

The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggadah by Stuart Halperin and Jacob Kupietzky (Maggid Books: 2024) is available online and in local Jewish bookstores.

Dr. Yvette Alt Miller lives with her family in suburban Chicago. Her latest book, Portraits of Valor: Heroic Jewish Women You Should Know , describes the lives of 40 remarkable women who inhabited different eras and lands, giving a sense of the vast diversity of Jewish experience.