Passover Food Street App

By Mark Mietkiewicz ~

Passover is on the way but its iPhone/iPad apps are already here. You can learn about the holiday, brush up on the Haggadah – and even keep the kids occupied while you try to get some cleaning done. Apps are free unless otherwise noted.

PASSOVER PREPARATION

No Chametz – Sell, Search, Destroy
Learn the laws for ridding your home of leavened products – including how to search for chametz on the night before Passover and burn it the following morning.

Pesach Guide
An overview of holiday customs, stories and essays with Chabad commentaries.

Passover Food Street – $0.99
Holiday recipes including Borscht Sorrel Soup, Classic Apple Charoset, Chipotle Orange Chicken and Low Carb Lemon Mousse. A convenient app but you can save yourself the 99¢ and search for those recipes online.

GAMES AND STORIES

Mash Passover
A holiday variation of “Mad Libs” where you fill in the blanks with names, songs, gifts and matzah ball types to generate a zany story which predicts who will find the afikomen.

Passover – The Journey to Freedom Story
Illustrated children’s storybook that will read the text to you. Or switch off the narration and have your kids do it themselves.

iMahNishtanah – $0.99
Learn all the words of Mah Nishtana through flash cards. Play a game to make sure your children understand what they mean.
Then listen to the Four Questions and have them record their own version. Nicely executed.
Passover Trucks Game – $0.99
Hurry! Various kinds of food (fruit, donuts, milk, matzah) are rolling down the conveyor belt. Your mission: to load the food onto the appropriate transport trucks (Regular or Passover).

Passover Matzah Ball Builder – $0.99
Imagine a digital Mr. Potato Head but swap the potato with a matzah ball. Decorate with a crazy assembly of appendages. When done, mail your personalized Matza Ball to your computer and print.

Happy Matza – $0.99
Transform your iPad into a pretty realistic looking piece of matzah. Use your fingers to coat it with (virtual) chocolate or jelly. Blow the mic to take a bite. Shake and start over.

HAGGADOT

Note: Although these hagadot will help you prepare for the holiday, I am not recommending that the seder table become transformed into yet another high-tech venue. I’ll be reaching for my traditional, well-thumbed and wine-stained, paper-based hagadah.

Haggada by “Yeladim – Fair Chance for Children”
A lovely, free haggadah created on behalf of the organization which runs 90 residential group homes around the country. The kids’ illustrations are unconventional and hilarious. Did you know that Moses’ beard was made of matzah? Hebrew only.

iHagada – $0.99
Bilingual including the entire text of the hagadah with nice graphics. Unfortunately, I found the interface somewhat confusing. Includes a Passover recipe section in Hebrew only.

Haggadah for Passover – $0.99
Hagadah highlights in English, Hebrew and transliterated Hebrew. [http://bit.ly/appesach5]

The Union Haggadah – $3.99
Edited by the Central Conference of American Rabbis with commentary and the hagadah text. (Oddly, the title page depicts a menorah, dreidel and Chanukah gelt!)
[http://bit.ly/appesach6]

A Cantor’s Seder – $6.99
A bilingual haggadah, very nicely rendered with instructions and the lovely singing by Cantor Emanuel Perlman of Chizuk Amuno Congregation in Baltimore. This app focuses on the songs and does not contain the entire text of the traditional haggadah.
[http://bit.ly/appesach7]

AND FINALLY…
The Ten Plagues of Egypt iPhone Apps
Not an app but a retelling of the story of the plagues if Moses had access to apps to help save the day (at least according to the students of the College of Management Academic Studies in Rishon LeZion).

Mark Mietkiewicz reports on the Internet.  He can be reached at highway@rogers.com