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HAGGADOT.COM LAUNCHES A CAMPAIGN FOR PASSOVER TO CREATE CROWD-SOURCED HAGGADAH

The Neverending Haggadah is a partnership with Schusterman Philanthropic Network to encourage people to personalize their Seders

Los Angeles, CA—March 12, 2013 - Every year, Jews around the world gather at the Seder table to re-tell the story of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt. While some still reach for the same standard Maxwell House Haggadah, increasingly people are personalizing their Seders by developing their own custom creations. At the forefront of this movement is Haggadot.com, an online platform that allows people to curate and publish haggadahs.

This year, Haggadot.com has joined forces with the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network to crowd-source a modern-day haggadah using Haggadot.com’s first-of-its-kind group collaboration tool. Over the next two weeks, up until the first night of Passover on March 25, individuals, groups and organizations are invited to contribute content to and download The Neverending Haggadah. Learn more here.

“Our group collaboration tool is a new feature on Haggadot.com that we are excited to share just in time for Passover,” says Eileen Levinson, an artist who founded Haggadot.com in 2011. “It allows multiple users to subscribe and contribute to one collaborative haggadah. To pilot this new technology, we asked the Schusterman team to help us reach out to their partners, friends and allies. We look forward to seeing the conversation that unfolds as people around the world contribute to The Neverending Haggadah.”

On March 13, at 1:00 pm EST, Haggadot.com and Schusterman will host a free webinar for users who want to learn how to host a more interactive Seder by curating their own haggadahs.

Currently Haggadot.com has more than 230 contributors who have added a total of 1,500 pieces of content.

Haggadot.com works like an interactive scrapbook. Users can login, upload personalized texts, graphics and audio and video content, and mix and match pieces from other contributors to create a standard 15-part Haggadah that fits their unique interests. Haggadot.com’s intuitive user interface and design makes the process simple.

In addition to essays, commentary and poetry, Haggadot.com offers artwork, music and multimedia content. Among the clips on Haggadot.com, users will find:

• Passover yoga poses co-existing with selections from a traditional haggadah from the 1500s;
• Options for Ashkenazi and Sephardi families that include both traditions in one haggadah;
• A haggadah with the central theme of the Four Children, combining artwork, a game, a ballad and a lecture by Rabbi Benjamin Englander; and
• A haggadah featuring poetry by A. E. Housman, Langston Hughes and Yehuda Amichai's ruminations on the Seder’s popular concluding song, “Chad Gadya” (One Goat).

Haggadot.com contains material in many languages including English, Hebrew, Italian, German, Yiddish and Ladino.

Seed funding for Haggadot.com was provided by the ROI Community, a member of the Schusterman Philanthropic Network, and the Natan Fund. Haggadot.com was also among the nine recipients selected for the pilot Jewish New Media Innovation Fund, a partnership between the Schusterman Foundation, Righteous Persons Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation.

“Innovative initiatives like Haggadot.com ensure that Jews all over the world are more than passive participants in our rich heritage and traditions,” says Lynn Schusterman, Co-chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network. “They enable us to take an active role in shaping our personal Jewish journeys.”

As part of its broader efforts to strengthen the Jewish future, the Schusterman Philanthropic Network provides young Jews with opportunities to create meaningful Jewish experiences and communities in their own image. This initiative is part of Schusterman’s celebration of 25 years of working to empower young people to create change for themselves, in the Jewish community and across the broader world.

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About Haggadot.com:

Haggadot.com invites Jews of all backgrounds to find their place in the Passover conversation through the seder's central text, the haggadah. Users can upload, exchange and personalize haggadot gaining simultaneous access to classical texts and contemporary interpretations from their peers, creating more meaningful Passover seders and connective Jewish experiences. www.haggadot.com

About the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network:

The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network (CLSPN) is a global enterprise that supports and creates innovative initiatives for the purpose of igniting the passion and unleashing the power in young people to create positive change for themselves, in the Jewish community and across the broader world. CLSPN includes the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Schusterman Foundation-Israel, ROI Community and REALITY.