In Hebrew Media 16/4/2022

For English translation, scroll down.

Translation:

If you wish, it is possible / Moriah Ofir

While most of us turn to the Seder table with only one Haggadah in hand, the grandchildren in the Roos family's house will discuss which Haggadah to take from the 1500 Haggadahs scattered around the house * 31 different languages ​​and different translations are only the beginning of the matza * and there is also a fifth question

“There are two Seder nights abroad, so I had to tell more about the Exodus from Egypt there than here in Israel, and in my family, when I was young, that was my job,” says Avraham Roos, who has an impressive collection of about 1500 different Haggadot. “So I had to have something new to say every time. One day a friend came to my room and saw 10 Haggadot on the shelf. He jokingly asked if I collected Haggadot and I answered "yes". That's how it all started and slowly it got out of hand," he laughs.

Roos was born in the Netherlands, emigrated to Israel in 1991, and has 6 children. He teaches English at Herzog College in Gush Etzion and Orot Yisrael in Rehovot, and is currently completing a PhD in comparing English translations of the Passover Haggadot from 1770 to the present.

Where do you get all those Haggadot?

"A lot of people know that I collect Haggadot and give them to me. In addition, I trade with other collectors and my wife also buys me some new Haggadot every year. Furthermore, there are people who don't know what to do with their old Haggadot they have at home; they belonged to their father or grandfather, and they want to give them a warm home so that they can be preserved. With a sticker with the names they commemorate their loved ones are then remembered in my collection.

The collection has grown over the years and includes special Haggadot in 31 different languages. The oldest Haggadah he has is from 1800. When I ask where he keeps so many Haggadot, he replies that they fill three full cupboards.

"There are so many different and strange Haggadot in their forms - there are some in the form of scrolls, there are Haggadot printed in newspapers, there are Haggadot for children, kibbutzim, military Haggadot ..., there are Haggadot that are special in their commentary and some that are special in illustrations," he explains. "The Haggadah that is closeest to my heart is the Haggadah that my grandfather used in the Netherlands immediately after the Holocaust.

Roos' dissertation examines the changes the English translation of the Passover Haggadot has undergone from 1770 to the present.

“As Hebrew speakers, we don't think about the difficulty of translating into other languages,” Roos says. The first Haggadah to be translated into English was in 1770. "The first woman to translate the Haggadah into English was Lily Cohen (1904). - She was born in Victorian times - with strict manners and morals, and she had problems translating the text literally because it contains words like circumcision and pregnancy. She didn't feel comfortable talking about that when there were children at the table, so she wrote "8 days of Hanukkah" instead of 8 days of circumcision. As for the number 9, she decided that it would mark "9 Ab", the fast day before the destruction of the temple instead of 9 months of pregnancy.

"Another example of a censored sentence is 'Your breasts were firm', which was changed into 'Your form was beautiful' as early as 1897, lest children read it. That is, all the Hebrew text remained, but next to that, the English translation was changed."

Roos gives another example: "In 1808 a translator named Isaac Levy was the first to write a note in the Haggadah that the youngest child would sing the song 'Mah Nishtana'. Before this, no one said that it should be just the youngest, and from then on this was adopted, became a habit and was copied to all later Haggadot."

Does it still happen today that translation is done in such an incorrect/inaccurate way?

"What is a correct translation? Is it a word for word translation or a translation of the meaning of the words? There are four sons in the Haggadah. Do you translate this as 'sons' or 'children'? Is the meaning literally boys or is it also about the girls? And before you say 'banim' are boys, please tell me what is the meaning of "Bnei Yisrael" (literally the sons of Israel but always translated as the People of Israel) Are these just the men or the whole nation?

What is Passover to you?

"This is my holiday. I celebrate it in the full sense of the word. For years I have been giving the Seder at Beit Juliana, a nursing home for Dutch people in Herzliya, in Hebrew and Dutch." A custom we have in our house is that the kids get to ask an extra question, and if I don't know the answer, they get a reward. They prepare well to find a question that they think I won't know the answer to, and I prepare well for my part."

And one last question - which Haggadah do you prefer to use?

Roos laughs. "They're like my kids and I find it hard to answer. I really like them all, especially the ones the kids bought me with their money when they were little and wrote nice introductions in them, but the Haggadah I use every year on Seder night is Rabbi Rimon's Haggadah because I like the way this rabbi organizes things in tables and diagrams and the interesting interpretations he brings."

You can contact Avraham Roos at: avrahamroos@gmail.com