Hassidic Rabbi Wins National Design Award

A Hasidic Rabbi from Brooklyn has won a prestigious national award for the best-designed book published in 2008.

Rabbi Chaim Miller, who authored and designed the Kol Menachem Passover Haggadah, was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Award at a ceremony in the Roosevelt Hotel, New York, last week. Miller attributed his success to the influences of Kabbalah. “I have never had any formal training in design,” he confessed. “I think it was all those hours of studying the Kabbalah that must have nurtured my artistic soul.”

The Benjamin Franklin Awards are organized by the IBPA, a trade association that serves to advance the professional interests of publishers, and are presented to the best publications in various genres based on excellence in editorial content and design. The Haggadah trumped two other finalists-an illustrated book on Phelbotomy and a guide to Organic Nutrition-to win the “interior design 1-2 color” category. Winners in other categories included publications from the BBC and the popular For Dummies series.

The Kol Menachem Haggadah already caught the attention of the media last year when President George Bush sent a signed copy of the book to the Jewish troops stationed in Iraq to lift their spirits, shortly before the Passover festival. But the sales really rocketed when it was nominated for “pick of the year” by Orthodox Union chief, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb , who described the commentaries as “startlingly relevant to contemporary life.”

Miller argued that being the author and designer had given him a unique advantage. “A book speaks to the reader as much through its presentation as it does through its textual content. When the author is also the designer, the typography is elevated beyond mere aesthetics to a vehicle of communication. You define the message and place it in its appropriate ‘packaging’ at the same time.”

Miller’s book is part of an ongoing project to publish the teachings of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson (1902-1994), the Grand Rabbi of Lubavitch, who was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the 20th century. Kol Menachem is the organization he founded for this purpose in 2002, together with Australian philanthropist and businessman Meyer Gutnick, and it has already produced an impressive array of publications in its short history. Most notable is the Kol Menachem Chumash (Bible), which has now become the fastest-growing Bible in the Jewish world. The success of Kol Menachem, which is a not-for-profit organization,has inspired support from international philanthropists such as diamond mogul Lev Leviev, and prominent hedge fund manager David Slager who sponsored the publication of the Haggadah.

The Passover Haggadah is a traditional Jewish text used to conduct the “Seder,” a bi-annual evening of ritual commemorating the Biblical Exodus from Egypt. President Obama made history this year by hosting the first official Seder to be conducted by a US president in the White House. Asked if he would approve of the President using the Kol Menachem Haggadah for next year’s Seder, Rabbi Miller said he would be “delighted.”

“The President used a very basic edition of the Haggadah which has been around since the 1930’s,” the Rabbi said. “It’s about time he upgraded to something a bit more modern and engaging.”