SOME UNUSUAL HAGGADAH PAGES 1924-1958 with a Number of Ritual Seder Objects Thrown In
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SOME UNUSUAL HAGGADAH PAGES 1924-1958 with a number of ritual seder objects thrown in The Haggadah is the most published book in Jewish life, certainly the one with the greatest number of illustrations. Yosef Yerushalmi, a noted scholar of Judaica at Columbia University, is the author of Haggadah and History, a panorama in facsimile of five centuries of the printed Haggadah from the collections of Harvard University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. This major survey was published by the Jewish Publication Society of America in 1975. (Professor Yerushalmi was a dear friend of mine (Naomi) when when we were at Camp Ramah in the Poconos. I remember vividly and with chills erev Tisha B’Av as the entire camp, dressed in white, walked down to the lake holding candles with the sound of his deep bass voice reciting Eicha/Lamentations sounding in our ears. He was brilliant scholar and a great teacher and died much too young.) The illustrations we have chosen for this exhibit are unusual and often topical in nature. The explanations that accompany them are from Dr. Yerushalmi’s book (some photocopied and some now typed here). To ground these non- traditional haggadot in the seder, we have added photographs of some of the Pesah ritual objects from own home. We will supplement the printed text with occasional comments of our own. One of the novelties in the illustrations of this Hungarian Haggadah (below) published in 1924 is the depiction of the four sons. In the haggadot of previous centuries the sons have been differentiated by their dress or by their gestures. Istvan Zador, the illustrator, draws only their faces and relies on the facial expression to identify each of them. Clockwise from top left: the wise son, the wicked son, the simple son and the son who knows not what to ask. How would you identify them? Seder plate, 19th century Vienna Reproduction from the collection of the Jewish Museum, New York Those of you at Temple Sholom who regularly visit our museum case displays over the years already have seen many of Otto Geismar’s Haggadah illustrations in our copy of this Haggadah. Cup for the Prophet Elijah, traditionally considered the herald of the Messiah – In our Reform tradition, of the Messianic Era. We open the door for Elijah, symbolically welcoming him into each Jewish home. The gold-trimmed porcelain cup was made by Lenox, 1970s. Antique fringed silk matzah cover, Europe 19th century. The Hebrew words read Hag Hamatzot Tish’mor – Observe the festival of Matzah! KULO MAROR – EVERYTHING IS BITTER! A ZIONIST HAGGADAH PARODY AN INTERNMENT CAMP IN VICHY FRANCE This seder plate is a replica of one manufactured in 1948 in the Foehrenwald Displaced Persons Camp near Munich, Germany by some of the 250,000 homeless Holocaust survivors then living in Europe. Seeking to build new lives, they clamored for the gates of Palestine to be opened. The text reads “From slavery to Freedom” – and instead of the traditional Passover phrase “Next year in Jerusalem” – it states, “This year in Jerusalem.” This plate is one of a limited edition of 500 numbered copies produced to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Passover 1984-5754. This plate is copy number 367. It has been displayed in previous years in the TSWE Museum case. This matzah holder was created for Naomi Patz by our late beloved member Hazel Enfeld whose many contributions to Temple Sholom included her years as cochair of the semi-annual rummage sale, an enormous undertaking for the synagogue. The symbols of the seder plate all appear. In the center is the word MATZAH in Hebrew. The “two previous” plates referred to above are in Haggadah and History. Illustrations from two additional Munich haggadot appear in the book as well. Unlike those, the edition whose title page is reproduced on the next page contains a nontraditional text. It was created by the Noar Halutzi Meuhad (“United Pioneer Youth”) in Germany and reflects the particular passion of the young to free themselves from the shackles of exile and make their way to the Jewish state, which was about to be born. This contemporary matzah container is thematically relevant to the haggadah illustrations from the war years because its central feature is a bitter herb which is one of the three required symbols in the seder service (the other two are the shankbone and the matzah). Its bitterness reminds us of the bitterness of our people’s enslavement in ancient Egypt – and of all our suffering over the centuries since then. The Hebrew inscription reads: Maror zeh b’hol dor – This bitterness [has been our people’s lot] in every generation. The central feature of this matzah cover is an adaptation of a page in the 14th century Sarajevo Haggadah. That haggadah has a fascinating history. The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains an illustrated traditional seder text. One of the oldest Sephardic haggadot in the world, it was made circa 1350 in Barcelona when Spanish Jews were facing increasing pressure from the Spanish rulers. The Sarajevo Haggadah is handwritten on bleached calfskin and illuminated in copper and gold. It opens with 34 pages of illustrations of key scenes in the Bible from creation through the death of Moses. Its pages are stained with wine, evidence that it was used at many Passover seders. The Sarajevo Haggadah has survived many close calls with destruction. Historians believe that it was taken out of Spain by Spanish Jews who were expelled by the Alhambra Decree in 1492. Notes in the margins of the haggadah indicate that it surfaced in Italy in the 16th century. It was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894 by a man named Joseph Kohen. Its rediscovery revolutionized scholarly assertions about the absence of art in Jewish culture based on a misreading of the second of the Ten Commandments (graven images). During World War II, the manuscript was hidden from both the Nazis and the Ustashe by the Museum's chief librarian, Derviš Korkut, who risked his life to smuggle it out of Sarajevo. Korkut gave it to a Muslim cleric in a village on a mountain of Bjelasnica, where it was hidden in a mosque. In 1957, a facsimile of the haggadah was published by Sándor Scheiber, director of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest. In 1992 during the Bosnian War, the haggadah manuscript survived a museum break-in, at which time it was discovered on the floor during the police investigation with many other items the thieves did not realize were valuable. It survived in an underground bank vault during the Siege of Sarajevo by Serb forces. To quell rumors that the Bosnian government had sold the haggadah in order to buy weapons, the president of Bosnia displayed the manuscript at a community seder in 1995. Afterwards, the manuscript was restored through a special campaign financed by the United Nations and the Bosnian Jewish community in 2001. It went on permanent display at the museum in December 2002. The haggadah, which is owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, was submitted by Bosnia and Herzegovina for inclusion in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register and was included in 2017. Its monetary value is undetermined, but a museum in Spain required that it be insured for $7 million before it could be transported to an exhibition there in 1992. Its current value is most likely about $50 million. We have displayed in the museum case our 1960s facsimile of the Sarajevo Haggadah, which is handbound in goat skin with gold stamping on the front and back covers and on the spine. Much of this information in this entry comes from the entry on the Sarajevo Haggadah on Wikipedia. A 2008 novel entitled People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is a fascinating fictionalized telling of the story of the haggadah. 1949 seder at Kibbutz Naan Holders for matzot traditional have separate compartments for three pieces of matzah. Early in the seder ceremony, the middle matzah is broken in half. One piece is returned to the holder and the other set aside as the afikomen, for the children at the seder to seek and find and redeem after the meal is completed. In fact, the seder can’t continue until that has happened! Helps to keep the kids awake for at least a few minutes more. This matzah holder contains four compartments because Naomi made it for our seders during the years when we set aside an additional matzah for our brothers and sisters, prisoners of hope in what was then the Soviet Union. We – and they – truly understood that the Pesah matzah was stronger than Soviet jet fighters and gulags. But it wasn’t an easy time for our people. Only in recent decades have women’s roles in Jewish life seemed to have been recognized beyond homemaking skills. And yet, from our earliest biblical past women have played central parts in Jewish life. Think of the four Matriarchs – Sarah, Rebeccah, Rachel and Leah (not to mention Eve) – and Hannah, Yael, Ruth, Esther, Naomi, among others. A modern seder tradition features Miriam, the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She saved Moses from the Nile by convincing Pharaoh’s daughter to retain Tzipporah, their mother as the baby’s wet nurse. Miriam was a leader of the Israelite women, leading them in singing and dancing with joy after the passage through the Sea of Reeds. And she is credited with finding wells of pure water for the Israelites to drink during their 40 years of wandering in the Wilderness of Sinai.