CELEBRITY SEDER NIGHT FEVER! Who would you invite to YOURS?
With the entire Jewish world and beyond to choose from, which people – past, present or fictional – would you want to break matzah with?
We asked 10 faces to pick eight guests to invite to a fantasy seder … Compiled by Fiona Leckerman
Host: Steven Berkoff, playwright and actor
Bernard Malamud – For writing such moving stories about the Jewish spirit and his pride in his race.
Franz Kafka – For his delightful imagination, his painful sensitivity and his depths of soul.
George Gershwin – For filling the world’s ears with the sublime sound of Jewish music with New York overtones. Sweet, jazzy, melodic, daring, heimish.
Isaac Bashevis Singer – For his wonderful exuberance, his passion and his mysticism.
Joe Papp – A quite wonderful Jewish actor, singer and, above all, the man who bought great theatre to New York. Created one of the most exciting theatre spaces in America: the New York Public Theater.
Marcel Marceau – For creating mime dreams on stage and for showing the miraculous possibilities of the human body. Just watching his brought joy to your life.
Norman Mailer – For being a word juggler, an acrobat of language, daring, visceral, an American version of the new Jew as a slayer of demons, mostly his own.
André Schwarz-Bart – French writer who wrote The Last Of The Just, one of the most sublime books on Jewish history in a fictional setting; it is both terrifying and deeply moving.
Host: Ivor Baddiel, comedy writer and author
Sigmund Freud – I didn’t want to use up three guest choices by inviting Freud, Einstein and Marx, so went for Freud as I have a degree in psychology and thus have a greater connection with him.
Joan Rivers – A fearless and brilliant comedian, you know she’s going to be entertaining.
Judas – He rarely gets a look-in as I expect most people would invite Jesus over him, and he gets a pretty bad press, so thought he deserved an invite. I’m sure he’d also have plenty to say for himself.
Elijah – Just to see if he’d actually turn up for once.
Geddy Lee – He’s the lead singer and bassist of my favourite band, Rush.
Baruch Spinoza – I don’t know a vast amount about his philosophy, but what I do know, I like, and he’s bound to be an interesting conversationalist.
Sarah Fabian-Baddiel – My mother, who died at the end of last year; she loved Seder night.
Ron Jeremy – Erm, look him up. Actually, don’t.
Host: Mayim Bialik, star of the Big Bang Theory
Sam Harris – We went to neuroscience grad school at UCLA together and he is my favorite atheist Jew ever. I don’t always agree with him, but he is brilliant and reasonable and thoughtful.
Billy Eichner – We met at the White House of all places, and before that I only knew that he does these crazy interviews and one featured him and Lindsay Lohan talking about me. I find him to be a fearless and hysterical comedian and he’s warm and heimish.
Sarah Silverman – Irreverent, perhaps. But so revolutionary. I would be fine if she came in jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers even.
Bill Prady – Our creator and executive producer on The Big Bang Theory. This man knows everything about everything and he is absolutely charming.
Eric Kaplan – Co-exec producer of The Big Bang Theory and author of Does Santa Exist? This is the guy who will catapult the seder into a philosophical and mystical journey.
Benjamin Netanyahu – Just so I can find out what’s going on in his head.
Lenny Kravitz – I need to have the experience of singing Chad Gadya with this man.
Jon Stewart – Such an influential voice for our times. Also probably sings a mean Chad Gadya.
Host: Baroness Ruth Deech, QC
Josef Fraenkel – My dear late father who, without missing out a word of the Haggadah, would race us through so we could get to dinner quickly!
Moses – For a retrospective on events
Theodor Herzl – To give meaning to “Next year in Jerusalem”
Topol – To sing the songs.
Florence Greenberg – To do the cooking.
Maureen Lipman – To keep us entertained and to persuade her not to emigrate.
Sarah Deech – My daughter, back at age seven, to ask Ma Nishtana.
Golda Meir – For advice on peacemaking over the washing-up.
Host: Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of WPP
“Pesach means bubbelech to me, ie the (stacks of) pancakes my mother used to make for me sprinkled with sugar, so I would invite my mother and father along.”
Golda Meir – Legendary former Israeli prime minister
Max Stone – founder of J&M Stone, a radio and electrical retailer sold to Firth Cleveland. My father ran it before and afterwards.
Sir Jules Thorn – businessman and philanthropist
Lord Weinstock – businessman and philanthropist
Phil Reiss – a US lawyer and advertising matchmaker I spoke to every day.
Bill Bernbach – American advertising creative director and one of the founders, in 1949, of the international advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach.
Host: David Schneider, comedian
Sigmund Freud – What a brain! What courage to say some of the things he said, even the wrong ones.
Woody Allen – His films have been a source of so much pleasure, especially, as he’d say, “the earlier funny ones”. And he’d love to spend time with Sigmund, I’m sure, so that should work.
Sholem Aleichem – You know, the guy who wrote Fiddler On The Roof. Funniest writer I’ve ever read.
Franz Kafka – There are enough extroverts now to carry Franz. He’ll probably want to go to bed early, what with the melancholy and TB; he might not even make it to the third cup.
Queen Esther – She sounds fun (if you can ignore all the revenge killing). Open-minded (married out) and courageous, plus it’s all getting a bit male heavy, this guest list, so it’d be good to have her.
Nelson Mandela – Who wouldn’t want the person who;s shown us most recently the value of forgiveness and reconciliation (and enjoying a good dance)?
Shabbetai Zevi – Every seder needs a tricky character. This “false messiah” who converted to Islam when threatened with death should liven up the debate.
Madonna – A strong woman who’s interested in Jews (I’ll make sure it’s a cape-free zone).
Host: Julie Burchill, journalist and author
Dov Gruner, Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi and Eliezer Kashani – Irgun freedom fighters, for their bravery during the re-birth of the Jewish nation.
Golda Meir – For her guts.
Moshe Dayan – To flirt with.
Avraham Stern – To gaze at.
Liz Taylor – Ditto.
Katie Glass – Sunday Times columnist, to slap my face, sober me up and call a cab.
Host: Philip Sallon, celebrity club host and man about town
Sigmund Freud – Bringing the brain/personality understanding and a motivation element to the seder
Karl Marx – The Jewish social conscience
Albert Einstein – The scientific contribution.
Jesus – He was a practicing, religious Jew and his Last Supper was a Passover celebration. It would be interesting to hear his take on how supposed Christ followers (Christians) idolise and worship a human as a God.
Fagin – potentally from the new Oliver movie, adding a dark but funny and entertaining element, and also good for playing the role of the ‘wicked son’ in the service.
Barbra Streisand – Good for singing and possible personality input, although when I met her while making a video, she didn’t have much to say.
Bette Midler – Another singer and bound to be feisty and fun.
Moses or Pharaoh Akhenaten – Who Freud said was the founder of the Jewish religion with his unique monotheistic, one-God worship beliefs. On the other hand, it might be fun hearing what it was like nattering away to God on top of Mount Sinai from Moses.
Host: Annabel Karmel, children’s food writer and nutrition expert
Neil Diamond – I’d like him to take the service.
Jackie Mason – I’d like him to comment on the service and add some humour; he takes ordinary life and shows us the funny side of how we behave.
Basil Fawlty – I’d like him to serve the food.
Anne Frank – I’d like to welcome her to my table and give her a Passover to remember.
Shimon Peres – I’d like to offer him a job in light of his latest YouTube video.
Joan Rivers – Because of her controversial, self-deprecating and acerbic humour.
Barbra Streisand – I’d like her to sing the songs at the end of the service.
Jeffrey Archer – We share the same literary agent and he came over for dinner one evening and had us all in stitches. He is a great raconteur.
Host: Graham Gouldman, musician and member of 10CC
My wife Ariella – It couldn’t happen without her.
Paul Simon – For musical chit chat.
Bob Dylan – As above.
Moses – So I could find out what really happened.
Jesus – To shake things up a bit.
Joan Rivers – For wit and personality.
Rabbi Akiva – To lead the service and provide solemnity.
Betty Gouldman – My mother, to tell the other guests who I am in case they don’t know.
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