This is a useful and informative haggadah, but its interior is virtually indistinguishable from dozens of other companion guides to the seder meal and ceremony. Commentary and explanatory notes fill the bottoms of the pages, with definitions of key terms and identifications of important characters. What makes this haggadah
slightly different is the tantalizing closing reference the author makes to his own experience at a seder in 1944 London. As the blitz raged above, the family he celebrated with continued calmly with the meal, ensuring that tradition would be preserved even as a new enemy sought to annihilate the Jews. Scharfstein offers disappointingly little interpretation of this experience as a re-enactment of the original Passover, but the story is memorable in itself. (Feb.)
