Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?: "The Four Questions" Around the World

by Ilana Kurshan

This fascinating, informative, and beautifully illustrated books translates the Passover seder's Four Questions into twenty-three languages and provides capsule histories of the Jews in the countries where the languages are spoken.

The recitation of the Four Questions at the beginning of the Passover seder by the youngest participant is one of the highlights of the evening and captures its very to keep the memory of the Exodus of the Jews from Egyptian slavery alive in our minds, and to teach our children about their heritage and history. This unique volume covers a variety of languages of the Jewish Diaspora—from French to Farsi, from Latin to Ladino, from Amharic to Afrikaans, from Yiddish to Swedish to Chinese. For each language a translation (and, where necessary, a transliteration) of the Four Questions is provided, accompanied by a brief overview of Jewish life and culture among the speakers of the language, and an illustrations of either historical or contemporary interest.

The perfect seder gift, Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights? is also an excellent introduction to Jewish history in the Diaspora for young and old alike.

Genres: Judaism, Religion

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Ilana Kurshan is a graduate of Harvard University and Cambridge. She has worked in literary publishing both in New York and in Jerusalem, as a translator and foreign rights agent, and as the book editor of Lilith magazine. Kurshan is the author of If All the Seas Were Ink, winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature.

Reviews

[Evanston Public Library]

This year the first Seder for Passover will fall on Monday night, April 18th. If your family is like my family, your Seder customs are part etched in stone and part evolutionary. Heaven help me if I try some other main course besides brisket, or if one of the favorite readings from the Haggadah (the Passover storybook) is skipped. But, we are very receptive to additions to our ritual, especially if they liven things up and get everyone to participate. A few years ago I discovered a wonderful book tucked away in the stacks here at EPL, and I'd like to recommend it as a boon to your holiday celebration.

Ilana Kurshan presents readers with the four questions--a most important part of the Seder, usually recited or chanted by the youngest present--in twenty-three languages. Each chapter covers one language: the text in original script and in transliteration, an overview of the culture with pertinent bits of history, and some photos or drawings to flesh out the section. At my Seders, after the youngest chants the four questions in Hebrew, it's time for everyone else to give one of the languages a try.In the past few years we've heard them in Latin, Farsi, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Czech, and Yiddish. This year one our guests speaks Turkish, so I'm looking forward to adding that language to the list. And, perhaps we'll be pleasantly surprised when someone announces they read Chinese or can chant the Ladino. Less likely will be guests who could handle the Marathi (India) or Amharic (Ethiopia), but since the Passover story and the survival of a wonderful tradition hinge on what some consider the miraculous, I can always hope.

Here are a few other titles that I suggest will enhance your Seder, or help you understand the traditions if you're going to be a guest at one for the first time.
■The Story of Passover (296.437 Story)
■Keeping Passover (296.437 Stein. I)
■Seder Stories (296. 437 Seder)

(Barbara L., Reader's Services)

[Melvin Marsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is more like the 4 answers rather than the 4 questions. It doesn't teach you how to ask the questions in the other languages, just how to answer them. It does show you how to ask the main question "Why is this night different from all the other nights?" in different languages.

I think the more useful thing in all of this is the interesting history lessons inbetween the languages.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun concept but it didn't have Arabic(!) or feature Morocco which seemed like a fairly obvious oversight to me.

[Margaret Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A charming little book that I purchased (two copies) for afikomen presents in a year our congregation is studying Jews Around the World. How perfect. This book continues 23 different languages in which you can ask the Four Questions. With each language there is a brief (2-3 page) description of the country. It is a little formulaic. Each language starts with when Jews first arrived in the country, then a brief history, then how anti-semitism impacted them, then what happened during World War II and then how many Jews are living there now. I might have liked to see positive impacts that the Jews of that country/language have made in the world or on Judaism. Or unique practices of Judaism from that group. However, the pictures are fascinating and compiling this all in one book was a fun way to extend our year's study.

Update 2019: Used this book with my confirmation class. Our family ed program for Passover was All About Questions. The kids used this to master Spanish and Chinese. Our congregation has members who were born in 17 different countries. Not every language/country is represented. Sadly no Morocco, Mongolia, or Japan. Our own family will use the Greek one this year as we have a guest coming who is a native Greek speaker.