Book Review: Seder Stories
Jason Kuiper - Omaha World-Herald
Mar 24, 2008
There are all kinds of Seders: chocolate Seders, singles Seders, Broadway Seders and prison Seders.
Local bookseller, literacy promoter and new author Nancy Rips has the ceremonial meal associated with Passover covered in her new book, "Seder Stories."
Books, it seems, are as much a part of Rips' life as breathing.
She has sold and reviewed books since 1976. She has worked for the Bookworm since 2001. She is on the boards of the Friends of the Omaha Public Library and the Kripke Jewish Federation Library, and she is a member of the Omaha Public Library Board of Trustees.
In 2004, Rips helped spearhead the effort to keep Omaha's Swanson Library open.
"She is a force of nature when it comes to promoting books and reading. She is kind of a rock star," said Rivkah Sass, Omaha Public Library director. "Her passion is really clear and, frankly, if the world paid more attention to her passions, the world would be a better place because everyone would be reading more."
Ask Rips to list her favorite books, and you get a person truly torn. "That's like asking me who my favorite child is." She reads mostly nonfiction.
Ten years ago, as she hosted a Seder, she saw the makings of a great book. The Haggadah, a book used at the Seder, was set down, and guests started telling their own stories of the holiday. (Seder is the evening service at the Passover dinner).
Rips started e-mailing people for their Seder stories. The first person she heard from was celebrity attorney, news pundit and author Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Rips kept pursuing the stories and doing more research.
She worked on the book for eight years, receiving 117 rejections before it was accepted by Cumberland House Publishing.
The book mixes humor and heartfelt family memories.
"I remember a cast of characters, the table filled with 30 or 40 relatives and everyone yelling and talking," she said of her own childhood Seders.
And for every heartfelt story, there is a quip or funny tale like George Burns' "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."
Rips also includes stories involving famous people: advice columnist Margo Howard recounting her mother Ann Landers' having a Seder with Yo-Yo Ma and others; Louie Kemp, a Duluth, Minn., seafood manufacturer, telling of a Seder that included Marlon Brando and Kemp's childhood friend, Bob Dylan.
Brando read from the Haggadah and Dylan sang "Blowin' in the Wind."
Rips said people have asked if the book is just for Jewish people. No, she said, the book covers universal feelings of families, holidays and traditions.
"Almost any story in the book could be read, inserting Thanksgiving or even Christmas, instead of Passover, and the family dynamics would be similar. And the world is such a small place, and especially in these extremely difficult times; people are trying hard to get along and understand other religions."
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Copyright 2008 by Omaha World-Herald
