The Sarajevo Haggadah is an

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, th ...

that contains the illustrated traditional text of the

Passover Passover, also called Pesach (; ), is a major Jewish holiday that celebrates the Biblical story of the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt, which occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, the first month of Aviv, or spring. ...

Haggadah The Haggadah ( he, הַגָּדָה, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the mitzvah to each J ...

which accompanies the

Passover Seder The Passover Seder (; he, סדר פסח , 'Passover order/arrangement'; yi, סדר ) is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted throughout the world on the eve of the 15th day of

Sephardic Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

Haggadahs in the world, originating in Barcelona around 1350. The Haggadah is owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. 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. 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 Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing *Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it *Creationism, the belief that ...

through the death of

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...

. Its pages are stained with wine, evidence that it was used at many Passover Seders. The Sarajevo Haggadah was submitted by Bosnia and Herzegovina for inclusion in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register and was included in 2017.

History

The Sarajevo Haggadah has survived many close calls with destruction. Historians believe that it was taken out of the Iberian Peninsula by Jews who were expelled by the

Alhambra Decree The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: ''Decreto de la Alhambra'', ''Edicto de Granada'') was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Arag ...

in 1492. Notes in the margins of the Haggadah indicate that it surfaced in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

in the 16th century. It was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894 by a man named Joseph Kohen. During World War II, the manuscript was hidden from the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

and Ustashe by the Museum's chief librarian,

Derviš Korkut Derviš Korkut (5 May 1888 – 28 August 1969) was a Bosnian Muslim scholar — a librarian, teacher, humanist and orientalist. He is the brother of the famous Bosnian translator of the Quran, Besim Korkut. Derviš Korkut is remembered ...

, who risked his life to smuggle the Haggadah out of Sarajevo. Korkut gave it to a Muslim cleric in a village on a mountain of

Bjelasnica Bjelasnica is a mountain range in the south of Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically in the municipality of Trebinje. It is located on the right side of the river Trebišnjica The Trebišnjica ( sr-cyrl, Требишњица) is a river in Bosnia ...

, where it was hidden in a mosque. In 1957, a facsimile of the Haggadah was published by

Sándor Scheiber Sándor Scheiber (also Alexander Scheiber; 9 July 1913 – 3 March 1985) was a Hungarian rabbi and an eminent Jewish scholar. From 1950 until his death he was director of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest. Biography Scheiber was born in Bud ...

, director of the Rabbinical Seminary in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

. In 1992 during the

Bosnian War The Bosnian War ( sh, Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. The war is commonly seen as having started ...

, the Haggadah manuscript survived a museum break-in and it was discovered on the floor during the police investigation by a local Inspector, Fahrudin Čebo, with many other items thieves believed were not valuable. It survived in an underground bank vault during the

Siege of Sarajevo The Siege of Sarajevo ( sh, Opsada Sarajeva) was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav ...

by Serb forces. To quell rumors that the government had sold the Haggadah in order to buy weapons, the president of Bosnia presented the manuscript at a community Seder in 1995. In 2001, concerned with the possible continuing deterioration of the Sarajevo Haggadah which was stored in a city bank vault under less than ideal conditions, Dr. Jakob Finci, the head of Sarajevo’s Jewish Community, appealed to Jacques Paul Klein, the Special Representative of the Secretary General and Coordinator of United Nations Operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for his assistance in ensuring the preservation and restoration of this priceless historical treasure. Klein quickly agreed and developed a plan to secure the required funding, identify an internationally recognized expert to undertake the restoration and make space available in the United Nations Headquarters building where the restoration efforts could begin. When the project became public knowledge, Klein was surprised at reticence of some local Bosnian officials to support the project. Only after informing President Itzobegovic of their obstructionism and letting him know that the International Community would take a dim view of their total lack of cooperation in the restoration efforts did President Izetbegovic clear the way for the restoration project to begin. Klein initiated an international campaign to raise the required funding. Contributions came from individuals, institutions and governments from around the world. With funding in hand and with Dr. Pataki, from Stuttgart’s Akademie Der Bildenden Künste, ready to begin the restoration project a climate-controlled room was refurbished in Sarajevo’s National Museum to house the Haggadah as the centerpiece, surrounded by documents of the Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim faiths. Additionally, as a beau geste to the City of Sarajevo, a second climate-controlled vault was funded to house the national archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Donor Plaque of Sarajevo Haggadah

On 2 December 2002, the vault room was dedicated by the Special Representative of the Secretary General in the presence of senior Bosnian government officials, the diplomatic community and international media as well as the public. The Sarajevo Haggadah and other sacred and historical religious documents had, at last, found a worthy home. Sarajevo Haggadah Vault Room

In 1985 a reproduction was printed in Ljubljana, with 5,000 copies made. The National Museum subsequently authorized the publication of a limited number of reproductions of the Haggadah, each of which has become a collector's item. In May 2006, the Sarajevo publishing house Rabic Ltd., announced the forthcoming publication of 613 copies of the Haggadah on handmade parchment that attempts to recreate the original appearance of the 14th century original, alluding to the

613 Mitzvot The Jewish tradition that there are 613 commandments ( he, תרי״ג מצוות, taryag mitzvot) or mitzvot in the Torah (also known as the Law of Moses) is first recorded in the 3rd century AD, when Rabbi Simlai mentioned it in a sermon that i ...

. There is a brief mention of the manuscript in the motion picture ''

Welcome to Sarajevo ''Welcome to Sarajevo'' is a 1997 war drama film directed by Michael Winterbottom, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book ''Natasha's Story'' by Michael Nicholson. The film stars Stephen Dillane, Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei, ...

''. The novel ''

People of the Book People of the Book or Ahl al-kitāb ( ar, أهل الكتاب) is an Islamic term referring to those religions which Muslims regard as having been guided by previous revelations, generally in the form of a scripture. In the Quran they are ide ...

'', by Geraldine Brooks (2008), crafts a fictionalised history of the Haggadah from its origins in Spain to the museum in Sarajevo. The Winter, 2002, issue of the

literary journal A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and lett ...

Brick published

Ramona Koval Ramona Koval (born 1954, Melbourne) is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist. Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of The Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950. Koval is known for her extended and in-depth in ...

's account of the disputes surrounding the proposed

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

-funded display of the original

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

in the context of the post-

Dayton Agreement The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, also known as the Dayton Agreement or the Dayton Accords ( Croatian: ''Daytonski sporazum'', Serbian and Bosnian: ''Dejtonski mirovni sporazum'' / Дејтонски миро ...

UN-supervised 1995 peace settlement. The history of Derviš Korkut, who saved the book from the Nazis, was told in an article by Geraldine Brooks in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' magazine. The article also sets out the story of the young Jewish girl, Mira Papo, whom Korkut and his wife hid from the Nazis as they were acting to save the Haggadah. In a twist of fate, as an elderly woman in Israel, Mira Papo secured the safety of Korkut's daughter during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. A copy of the Sarajevo Haggadah was given to former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair by the Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mustafa Cerić during the awards ceremony for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation's Faith Shorts competition in December 2011. The Grand Mufti presented it as a symbol of interfaith cooperation and respect, while recounting the protection of the Jewish book by Muslims on two occasions in history. Another copy was given by the Grand Mufti Mustafa Cerić to a representative of the

Chief Rabbinate of Israel The Chief Rabbinate of Israel ( he, הָרַבָּנוּת הָרָאשִׁית לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Ha-Rabbanut Ha-Rashit Li-Yisra'el'') is recognized by law as the supreme rabbinic authority for Judaism in Israel. The Chief Rabbinate C ...

during the interreligious meeting "''Living Together is the Future''" organised in Sarajevo by the Community of Sant'Egidio. In October 2012, the Haggadah's future exhibition was left in limbo following a drought in funding for the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which shuttered its doors after going bankrupt and not paying its employees for almost a year. In 2013 the

New York Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

attempted to arrange for a loan of the Haggadah, but due to internal political battles within Bosnia and Herzegovina, the loan was eventually refused by Bosnia's National Monuments Preservation Commission. However, the Haggadah was again on display as of September 2015, following the National Museum's re-opening.

References

External links

Pictures from the Sarajevo Haggadah

National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Sarajevo Haggadah in the Bezalel Narkiss Index of Jewish Art
{{Authority control 14th-century illuminated manuscripts Culture in Barcelona Culture in Sarajevo Haggadah of Pesach History of Sarajevo Jewish illuminated manuscripts Judaism in Bosnia and Herzegovina National Monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sephardi Jewish culture in Europe Sephardi Jewish culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina Written monuments of Bosnia and Herzegovina Siege of Sarajevo National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina