Homebaked Shakespeare

Passover begins in three days. Are you ready? I’m sure you’re well-stocked with matzah, but have you given any thought to the Passover matzah cover?

If you want to jazz up the Passover table, look no further than this Shakespeare Matzah Cover craft project. It’s easy enough for your kids to do by themselves, so sit back, relax, pour a big cup of Manischewitz, and enjoy your freedom from slavery.

Shakespeare Matzah Cover

Shakespeare loved plagues. Whether using “plague” as a noun or a verb, Shakespeare took inspiration from God’s arsenal of boils, locusts, etc. etc. that drove the Egyptians bonkers.*

Materials:
scissors
glue
printout of Shakespeare plague quotations (included below)
one 9x12 piece of craft felt (any color)

1. Print out the Shakespeare quotations
2. cut them out
3. glue them onto the felt
4. let them dry (for about as long as it takes to eat a peanut butter and jelly matzah sandwich)
5. stack some matzah on a plate
6. place the cover over the matzah

All the contagion of the south light on you,
You shames of Rome! . . . Boils and plagues
Plaster you o'er, that you may be abhorr'd
Further than seen and one infect another
Against the wind a mile!—Coriolanus, 4.4.48-50


If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry:
be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape
calumny.—Hamlet, 3.1.135-7


A plague upon your epileptic visage!—King Lear, 2.2.79


Thou art a boil,
A plague sore, an embossed carbuncle
In my corrupted blood.—King Lear, 2.4.244-46


You taught me language; and my profit on't
Is, I know how to curse. The red plague rid you
For learning me your language!—The Tempest, 1.2.425-427


Call up her father,
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,
. . . . Plague him with flies.—Othello, 70-71, 74


A plague on both your houses!—Romeo and Juliet, 3.1.91

*not to mention all those nasty European Plagues . . .