Pinko Magazine Hedonism + Activism

Was at the food store today, and on the way out I picked up something I’d never seen in my life: an ad-filled, corporate sponsored “Maxwell House Passover Haggadah.” For non-Jews reading Pinko (hi Dad!) a Haggadah is basically a prayer book for one of the most sacred Jewish holidays. It’s hardly the sort of thing you’d expect to see plastered with a “good to the last drop” (of guilt?) logo.

But there it is, page after page: Hassids drinking coffee (rawr …); an old Jewish grandmother on the back cover sipping Maxwell House; the declaration that Maxwell House “has been privileged” to help sponsor Passover for 70 years; a back page ad declaring “a coffee this Passover for EVERY taste.” The prayer book is actually very dutiful: containing nary a shameless reference to coffee consumption, all in all it’s a very conservative prayer book that happens to be sponsored by some world class terrible coffee. I expected Moses drinking a latte; instead he parts the red sea as expected and the red sea is salt water, not Colombian Supreme.

Who knew? Or, as you might say on pesach, voszhe! sara groyse oygn. tsu vos? tsu vos! (Our web traffic is plummeting right … about … now.) More simply, who the fuck ends a passover dinner with a hot mess of maxwells?

I was curious. Was Maxwell a jew? Was his house a synagogue, or perhaps fashioned of clay? Deep inside the not-so-Kosher looking hq in Nashville, is the Torah the word? As it turns out, Maxwell House has a soft spot for the jews after all: the Hagaddah is pure marketing; a money-making effort to open up a new market:

The publication of its Passover haggadah by the Joseph Jacobs Advertising Agency beginning in 1934 made Maxwell House a household name with many American Jewish families. This was a clever marketing strategy by owner Joseph Jacobs, who hired an Orthodox rabbi to certify that the coffee bean was technically more like a berry than a bean and, consequently, kosher for Passover. Maxwell House coffee was the first to target a Jewish demographic, and the haggadah continues to represent a synthesis of American and Jewish interests.

Is a coffee more a berry than a bean? No. Is the synthesis of American and Jewish interests bad coffee? Perhaps, at least metaphorically. Kraft Foods, Maxwell’s parent company, is the kind of company I’d always kind of assumed incinerated Jews into Phillip Morris cigarettes. Instead they’re retelling the exodus, and offering on page nine a little boy who looks oddly like me reading the four questions, none of which are “why does Maxwell House have it’s logo in the haroset? It’s strange, but I’m actually thankful for a convenient, free, handout hagaddah. I wont buy Maxwell House, but I appreciate it.

Next year in Nashville, perhaps.

About The Author - Ben Wyskida is a writer, activist, conscientious hedonist and political communications strategist living in Brooklyn. - Visit Ben's site.