February 23, 2020

Welcome Haggadot.com's new Content & Community Manager: Dave Cowen!

Posted by Haggadot

Author of The Trump Passover Haggadah and The Yada Yada Haggadah is Haggadot.com's new Content and Community Manager

Hi, my name is Dave Cowen and I am absolutely thrilled to be the new Content & Community Manager for Haggadot.com. I’ve loved Passover since I was a child. My family would host the first night at our house in a casual and reform way and then the second night we would go to an orthodox family for a more traditional celebration, which was still really fun. 

 

Later in life, as I started to write humor professionally, I also started to write my own parody Haggadot for my family’s seders. These Haggadot turned into The Trump Passover Haggadah (don’t worry it also made fun of Bernie) and The Yada Yada Haggadah (about the greatest Jewish-American sitcom about nothing of all time for you Gen Zers). These haggadot were best sellers on Amazon the last two years, many Jews enjoyed them at their seders, and I made a bit of profit. However, I often found much of the Hebrew and background information for the Haggadahs on Haggadot.com, the free non-profit site started by Eileen Levinson, which I credit in the back of the books and donated to, but still wished I could do more for. 

 

This last year has been a transformational one as I lost my father suddenly and so part of my mourning process this year has been reconnecting with spirituality. I went from a smart-alecky pretty agnostic guy to a very spiritual still somewhat smart-alecky man. I plan to talk more about this transition in a future blog post as it involves Judaism's Kabbalah and the year of mourning for a parent or Yud Bet Chodesh as well as other religions’ spiritual traditions. But suffice to say, for now, I’ve since made it a goal to try to reorient myself toward not just creativity but also toward selfless service or what many Jews would call Tikkun or world repair.

 

When Eileen put out a job posting for someone to help her non-profit that had helped me so much, I truly felt that God wanted us to work together. Sorry if that sounds dramatic, but I now see God everywhere. Do you, too? Either way, here we are. All of us are using this fantastic resource. I am so excited to contribute my creativity to this community and help others contribute their own creativity to it, too. I’m still interested in humorous or entertaining content, like Beyonceder and Monty Python Haggadah clips, but I’m now also interested in combining Judaism with other spiritual traditions. For instance, what does a New Age Haggadah look like? Please feel free to email me at [email protected], if you’d like to submit an idea for me to write for you. Also feel free to email me to help brainstorm, co-write, or edit your own clips with you.

 

Here are three clips I've just contributed to Haggadot.com and three of my favorite entertainment clips!

 

https://www.haggadot.com/clip/pharaoh-and-moses-go-to-a-conflict-counselor

https://www.haggadot.com/clip/jerry-seinfeld-s-passover-stand-up-routine

https://www.haggadot.com/clip/stephen-miller-removes-deports-the-hametz

 

https://www.haggadot.com/clip/four-questions-passover

https://www.haggadot.com/clip/dr-seuss-four-questions

https://www.haggadot.com/clip/monty-python-haggadah

 

Let's all have fun creating our own Haggadot, however we choose to, whether we want to sell them on Amazon for $6.99 or not ;)

 

Much love,

Dave