The Haggadah throughout History

The Passover Haggadah relates the story of the birth of the Jewish people. Said to be the most popular Jewish book in history, the publication history of the Haggadah is the story of the Jewish people over the ages, with over three thousand printed editions and manuscripts created in all of the eras and places were Jews have lived. Four notable Haggadot with their own fascinating stories are surveyed here.

C. 1350 Sarajevo Haggadah

The “Sarajevo Haggadah” belongs to a genre of Sephardic Haggadahs produced in northern Spain. In addition to its stunning artwork, it has also achieved fame due to the extraordinary story of its survival: It was removed from the Iberian Peninsula by Jews expelled from there in 1492 and brought to Italy, where it was eventually sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo. Later, to save it from destruction by the Nazis during World War II, it was smuggled out of Sarajevo and given to a Muslim cleric who hid it in a mosque. In 1992, it also survived the Bosnian War.

C. 1300 Birds’ Head Haggadah

The “Birds’ Head Haggadah” was illustrated by a scribe named Menachem and produced in the Upper Rhine region of Southern Germany in the early fourteenth century. It is the oldest surviving illuminated Ashkenazi Passover Haggadah. It earned its “Birds’ Head” moniker from a perplexing feature: all Jewish men, women, and children depicted in the manuscript wear bird faces with beaks atop their human bodies, which has triggered a variety of theories. The characters wear medieval German Jewish clothing, including the pointed “Jewish hat” mandated by the Church beginning in the thirteenth century.

In the Sarajevo Haggadah, the liturgical text is preceded by an entire series of illustrations depicting biblical scenes, from Creation through the Exodus and Mount Sinai. This page depicts the Jewish people crossing the Red Sea.

This page presents the kidush liturgy that marks the formal start of the seder. The bottom of the page depicts a horseman hunting hares—an amusing reminder of the correct order of blessings for a Passover that coincides with Saturday night (whereby kidush is combined with the Havdalah prayer). The Hebrew mnemonic for the correct order is YaKNeHaZ, which sounds awfully similar to the German expression jag den has—“hunt the hare.”

1526 Prague Haggadah

The 1526 “Prague Haggadah” is the earliest fully illustrated printed Haggadah. Its margins contain instructions and details of Jewish law for conducting the seder, with supplemental selections of Haggadah commentary. The woodcut illustrations included in this work bore enormous influence on the subsequent history of Haggadah illustration.

1943 Holocaust Haggadah

Before World War II, Shmaryahu and Sara Landau were wealthy business owners and community figures who lived with their children Elimelech, Yehudah, and Tamar in Borislav, Poland (now part of Ukraine). After the Nazi invasion, Borislav’s Jews were confined to a ghetto, and groups of them were systemically rounded up and massacred. In February 1943, the Landau family found refuge with the local Polish Kushiotko family, who hid them in their home.

On Passover, the Kushiotko family allowed the Landaus to kasher their oven and prepare matzah from grain that the Landaus ground in a coffee grinder. Shmaryahu Landau recited the text of the Haggadah from memory to his son Elimelech, who wrote it down and decorated the text. After the war, the Landau family immigrated to Israel and gifted their Haggadah to the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum.

This page presents the Mah Nishtanah questions traditionally posed by children attending the seder