Haggadot Collection

Four Haggadot, One Festival of Freedom

The manuscripts brought together as the Haggadot Collection span roughly four centuries of Jewish book and festival culture. Each contains the traditional text for the Passover Seder: the memory of slavery and the Exodus from Egypt, the children’s questions, the interpretation of matzah and bitter herbs, blessings, psalms, and songs. Yet their scripts, decoration, and textual traditions differ markedly. The same story of liberation is therefore heard in four distinct cultural voices.

The Rothschild Haggadah from Northern Italy

The earliest manuscript was created in northern Italy around 1450. Following the Ashkenazi rite, it was written on parchment in a bold square script and illuminated probably by Joel ben Simeon or in his workshop. Colorful marginal images depict subjects including the plagues, the baking of unleavened bread, and the rituals of the Seder.

A remarkably lively visual world emerges between solemn sacred history and unexpected humor. The wise son, for example, touches his nose—probably a play on the Hebrew expression ve-af atah. The text also preserves older liturgical features: the now familiar concluding songs “Echad Mi Yodea” and “Chad Gadya” are absent, and after the fourth cup the manuscript ends by declaring “Ma Nishtana” complete. Medieval liturgy, observation of daily life, and subtle visual wit become inseparably intertwined.

A Prayer Book for a Woman in Mantua

The second Haggadah forms part of a complete prayer book according to the Italian rite, copied in Mantua in 1480 by Abraham Farissol for a woman whose name was later erased. Gold, radiant color, ornamental initials, and scrolling decoration accompany the carefully arranged text. Especially striking is the morning blessing “who has made me as a woman and not a man,” which departs from the customary medieval wording.

Here the Passover text belongs to a book intended for the entire religious year. The Seder thus appears not in isolation, but within a personal order of prayer and life addressed to a woman of the Italian Renaissance.

Meshulam Zimmel’s Splendid Visual World

In 1719, Meshulam Zimmel ben Moses of Polná created a Haggadah in Vienna for Nathan ben Isaac Oppenheim. The celebrated scribe and artist translated the appearance of copper engraving into exceptionally delicate penwork on parchment. His richly composed title page unites the Binding of Isaac, Moses and Aaron, David and Solomon, and a contemporary family celebrating the Seder.

Further miniatures explain the evening’s ritual actions and narrate the Exodus in a visual language strongly influenced by the printed Amsterdam Haggadah. Hebrew text and Yiddish instructions join learned tradition with practical domestic observance. Calligraphy, narrative miniature, and courtly elegance achieve a brilliant unity.

The Yemenite Voice

The fourth manuscript was created in the nineteenth century and preserves the Haggadah according to the Yemenite rite. Its appearance is more restrained than that of the European luxury manuscripts, yet geometric crown motifs above the pages and an imaginative final image give it a distinctive character. In the colophon, the scribe identifies himself as Joseph ben Joseph Hamami.

The Yemenite textual tradition differs from Ashkenazi and Sephardi versions in the Kiddush and in other passages. Seen together, the four books reveal the Haggadah as both a stable core of Jewish memory and a flexible form shaped by the communities that used it.