Here is a brief history of the Maxwell House Haggadah, a Seder favorite. Joseph Jacobs from the Lower East Side started an advertising firm in 1919. Jacobs was determined to introduce the value of marketing to the growing population of Jewish Americans. That’s when he met Joel Owsley Cheek of the Cheek-Neal Coffee Company, parent company to Maxwell House coffee. Jacobs met with Cheek to discuss placement of ads for Maxwell House in Jewish publications.
Years later during the Great Depression, Maxwell House turned to Jacobs for marketing help as the company was losing money to discounted coffee competitors. The idea was to give away a free Haggadah with every can of coffee, which was Kosher for Passover. Not long after that, Maxwell House became the coffee of choice for Jewish households around New York. In the following years, various versions have been distributed, in 2019 Maxwell House released the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Haggadah. The Maxwell House Haggadah is the most widely used Haggadah in the world with an estimated 50 million copies in print.
