#Haggadah

[mental-mona]

By reciting the Haggadah, Jews give their children a sense of connectedness to Jews throughout the world and to the Jewish people throughout time.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt"l, The Chief Rabbi’s Haggadah (Essays), p. 2

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

The Prague Haggadah, 1526, Bohemia.

[adelethecrow]

a character from the pages of the Bird Haggadah - an ancient Jewish manuscript

[greco-roman-jewess]

So I may be becoming a little bit obsessed with the Sarajevo Haggadah.

Particularly the swallowtail merlons on the castle at the top of this page.

I was hoping that maybe someone on Jumblr would know how to read it.

[estera-shirin]

Haggadah — Spain ca. 15th century

This Haggadah was created in Spain sometime in the 15th century, almost certainly before Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula.

[my-jewish-life]

I just got this in the mail from a friend! I love these so much😭💕

[girlactionfigure]

[sefaradweb]

📜 La Haggadah Dorada, una joya medieval del arte judío

🇪🇸 La Haggadah Dorada es un manuscrito iluminado de lujo, creado entre 1320 y 1330 en Cataluña, España, y actualmente conservado en la Biblioteca Británica de Londres. Sus ilustraciones, adornadas con fondos de pan de oro, narran episodios bíblicos desde el Génesis hasta el Éxodo, con un enfoque en el relato de la Pascua Judía. Este manuscrito, compuesto por 56 escenas en 8 páginas dobles, fusiona arte y narrativa, reinterpretando motivos cristianos en clave judía, según el análisis innovador del historiador del arte Marc Michael Epstein. El manuscrito incluye elementos únicos: mujeres prominentes en 46 escenas, como Miriam liderando el canto tras cruzar el Mar Rojo, un tema inusual y destacado. Además, utiliza patrones visuales diagonales y secuencias narrativas que evocan la exégesis judía medieval, combinando el pshat (interpretación literal) y el drash (interpretación homilética). Las imágenes trascienden lo literal, tejiendo comentarios sobre temas como la misión divina y la fecundidad judía. Incluso se especula que este tesoro podría haber sido creado para una mujer, posiblemente en duelo por un hijo perdido. La Haggadah Dorada no solo es un ejemplo de arte medieval, sino también un puente entre pasado y presente, mostrando la complejidad y riqueza del pensamiento judío.

🇺🇸 The Golden Haggadah is a luxurious illuminated manuscript, created around 1320–1330 in Catalonia, Spain, now housed in the British Library in London. Its illustrations, adorned with gold leaf backgrounds, narrate biblical episodes from Genesis to Exodus, with a focus on the Passover story. Consisting of 56 scenes across 8 double pages, this manuscript blends art and narrative, reinterpreting Christian motifs with a distinctly Jewish lens, as analyzed by art historian Marc Michael Epstein. A unique feature is the prominent role of women, appearing in 46 scenes, such as Miriam leading the song after crossing the Red Sea, an unusual and highlighted theme. Additionally, it employs diagonal visual patterns and narrative sequences reflecting medieval Jewish exegesis, combining pshat (literal interpretation) and drash (homiletic interpretation). The images go beyond illustration, weaving commentary on themes like divine mission and Jewish fertility. It is speculated that this treasure may have been created for a woman, possibly mourning a lost child. The Golden Haggadah stands not only as an example of medieval art but also as a bridge between past and present, revealing the depth and complexity of Jewish thought.

[lilithsaintcrow]

“The museum was ransacked during 1992’s Siege of Sarajevo, but the thieves, ignorant of the Haggadah’s worth, left it on the floor. It was removed to an underground bank vault, where it survived untouched, even as the museum sustained heavy artillery damage…The president of Bosnia presented it to Jewish community leaders during a Seder three years later.”

[dailymanuscript]

Folio 5 recto (The 6th & 7th plagues), the Brother Haggadah

[mascamaiorum]

"Birds’ Head Haggadah", medieval jewish illuminated manuscript with avian figures. Scholars say the human face was masked to circumvent the prohibition on images.

[jdsquared]

[shewhoworshipscarlin]

The Mantua Haggadah, 1568, Italy.

[arthistoryanimalia]

A special #Feathersday for #ChagPesachSameach: The Bird's Head Hagaddah c. 1300, the oldest surviving illuminated Ashkenazi Passover Haggadah, named for its depiction of Jewish human figures with bird heads. In this scene they're baking matzo!

The Birds’ Head Haggadah South Germany c. 1300 Scribe: Menahem Handwritten on parchment; dark brown ink & tempera; square Ashkenazic script H: 27; W: 18.2 cm Israel Museum, Jerusalem B46.04.0912

"The name of this early Passover Haggadah derives from its depiction of human figures with pronounced birds’ heads. The enigmatic practice of drawing bird and animal heads in place of human faces is found in other Ashkenazi manuscripts of the 13th and 14th centuries and has been interpreted in various ways.

This is the first illustrated Haggadah known to be produced as an entity separate from the prayer book. It contains depictions with ritual and textual themes: the preparation of matzah and the various blessings over wine and food recited during the Seder; biblical scenes like the gathering of the manna or the giving of the Torah; and messianic images such as the rebuilt Jerusalem."

[thepomegranatewitch]

tu bshvat 5784

Welcome to the new tradition around here, sharing my family's tu bshvat table! Pictures imperfect because we needed to sit and eat!

Image description. Three photos of a table set with a meal, described below. One from overhead, the other two from just over tableheight at two different angles.

The whole table! This is a secondhand dropleaf table that I fixed up a bit with oilcloth, but I'd love to have one of those old country kitchen wooden tables that serve as prep table, dining table, and ad hoc operating table for La Résistance. The kids keep grabbing onto the edge and trying to swing off this, and you can imagine that will one day soon end very poorly.

Since I live an actually not aesthetically cottagecore life, we have nothing but the finest dollar store plain white dishware for us adults, and metal sets for the kids. I haven't finished making all the colour coded napkins, but eagle eyed individuals will notice each blue gingham napkin has a flower embroidered in the corner in each of our colour coding scheme, from top left clockwise that's red, yellow, green, orange. Each setting has a bowl on a plate, a fork and spoon on a blue napkin, and a haggadah with a pomegranate branch on blue circle. Adult settings also have a butter knife and a stemmed port glass, and the kid settings have two small square sticker sheets and a turkish teaglass.

The table has, from top left clockwise, an adult place setting, a fruit plate on glass, a child setting, a red plate with four servings of melanzane alla parmigiana, an adult place setting, a paper packet of parsley seeds, a small glass jar with cardamom pods, a glass bowl of wash water with three star anise floating in it, a gray towel with white stripes, and a child setting. Down the center of the table from left to right is a bowl of fruit and nut studded barley, a bottle of white and a bottle of red wine, a square container with mixed roasted vegetables, a half gallon mason jar with water, a pecan pie with circular pattern, and a plate of homemade thick matzah. Yes, I made matzah because I thought it would be easier than making bread. Yes, my oven hasn't been cleaned in a while and so started smoking. Yes, the smoke alarms went off multiple times. Yes, I did have to stand there facing the street while it rained pumping the side door while all the windows were open to get all the steam and smoke particles out of the air. Holiday adventures with Sahar!

Image description. Four close up shots of foods, described below. All are birds eye except the barley, which is at an angle to show the careful mounding.

the fruit plate! Our minhag is at least twelve tree fruits so we piled most of them on the tasting plate. From the ramekin going clockwise, that's a ramekin of pomegranate arils, a chunk of pomegranate, segmented tangerine slices, dried apricots, almonds, dried figs, golden raisins (the baby calls them 'ravens'), extra-dark chocolate chunks (cacao is a tree fruit, it's what the ancestors would want), a ramekin of pitted kalamata olives, and some dried medjool dates. Bonus: the kids ate the plate remnants as a serve-yourself breakfast the next morning. Always wonderful when a holiday yields some batch cooking and child autonomy.

a pecan pie. We use the King Arthur Flour Old-Fashioned Pecan Pie recipe because corn syrup tastes off to me. The changes we made this time are making a savory not sweet pie crust (my spouse makes it with iced water and vodka), cream instead of milk, toasting the filling nuts just shy of burnt, and cream instead of milk. It worked really well to reduce the sweetness from 'sickening' to 'very.' It's our traditional dessert and we eat it only once a year because it's so sweet. I like laying the pecans flat side up in rings on the top for full coverage and so it looks a little like tree rings.

The washwater bowl. It's just a glass mixing bowl with water, but I dropped in some orange blossom water and floated some star anise to make it pretty, and I liked it. Will have to repeat the anise for pesach, but skip the orange blossom water - the anise completely overpowered it.

The barley. We cooked it plain and then added walnuts, pine nuts, dried cherries, fresh pomegranate, and a lot of olive oil. We didn't salt it, which was fine, because we let the kids salt the eggplant before we roasted it, which was not fine. Together they taste great. For those keeping count, the barley dish rounds out the tree fruits to thirteen, and with the whole-wheat matzah that makes all seven species! Side note on the matzah, keep your eyes peeled around pesach for my recipe. Once I learned how to make it, I'm never going back to store matzah. Mine is delicious and oil rich, and we eat it as a pleasant flatbread, not just the bread of affliction.

Image description. Two photos of amanita mushrooms from overhead angles.

As a final bit, please enjoy these amanita mushrooms from the JCC. The groundskeeper is in a months-long battle with this patch that just keeps coming back. He keeps knocking over all but one so the preschoolers can safely enjoy looking only, and they keep popping up. I'm delighted - I thought these were mythical and didn't realize they grew where I live now!

If you'd like to support my work, you can buy a copy of my tu bshvat haggadah here, and the two tu bshvat stickers here and here.

[estera-shirin]

Haggadah — Ulm, Germany ca. 1460s

This Passover Haggadah was scribed by Joel Ben Simeon.