The Prague Haggadah
The Prague Haggadah
About the Prague Haggadah
The contents of the Passover Haggadah comprises the story
of the Exodus from Egypt and the vision of the future
redemption from all exiles .
This double nature is reflected in its literary construction,
its illustrations, additions, songs and commentaries .
Our ancestors became slaves in Egypt: G-d brought us out
of this slavery, through many miracles, to be free to settle
in the Holy Land .
The Haggadah explains that without the miracle of this
great deliverance, we , the descendants, would still be
slaves in Egypt.
The Passover Haggadah is therefore a drama, which is
reenacted annually on Passsover Eve. Part of the text
presents the ritual, while other parts include prescriptions
for the actions and the reasons for them.
Artists who illustrated the Passover Haggadah through the
ages, depicted the slavery and the Exodus from Egypt, and
added illustrations of the visions of the redemption , with
creative and artistic impulse.
The lively illustrations expressed the sentiments of freedom
and joy felt by every Jew on the Passover Festival .
The text and illustrations had also a practical purpose: to
provoke questions from the children and thus give the
father an opportunity fully to relate the story of the Exodus
The first printed Hebrew book, after the invention of
printing, came off the press in 1475, and only a few years
later, about 1482, the Passover Haggadah was printed in
Spain .
The Prague Haggadah was the first Passover Haggadah book
to be printed in Central Europe after the Jews were expelled
from Spain ( 1492 ). As the first printed illustrated Haggadah
book in Central Europe it was used as prototype for many
illustrated editions of the Passover Haggadah printed
afterwards in Europe.
The Prague Haggadah is the first illustrated Haggadah to be
preserved in its entirety,
and till nowadays it is considered as one of the most beautiful
editions of the Passover Haggadah books
Although not the first illustrated Haggadah, it is no doubt the
first to have been executed with a care for aesthetic taste and
feeling, apparent not only in the attractive woodcuts but also
in the fine lettering, splendid initials and the general layout.
The printer's name, published on the end of the volume, is
Gershom Cohen, who reports that with the help of his brother
Gronem Katz , finished the Prague Haggadah on the last day
of the year 1526
The artist , or craftsman, who made the woodcuts was
apparently a man named Hayyim Shachor or Schwartz (the
letter "sh" is found in four of the woodcuts). However, some
of the woodcuts may have been made by other artists .
The Prague Haggadah presents a new tendency in the artistic
tradition of illuminated Haggadah books, due to the
replacement of ancient methods with the new methods of
printing woodcuts.
Using the advantages of the new craft of printing it is
handsome in the profuse decorations which form the borders
of its main pages, the ornamental initials, the imaginative
decorations which are all printed woodcuts.
There are four groups of woodcuts: the decorative words, the
full page borders, the wide scenes, the marginal figures.
However, the artist economized on the number of woodcuts
by reusing quiet a number of them more than once.
Traditional Jewish subjects, motifs and iconography were
fused with the more fashionable styles and layouts of
contemporary religious illuminations and regional views,
according to the personal taste of the artist .
Printers in different Jewish centers began to produce
Haggadah books of their own and drew on the Prague
Haggadah in style.
The Prague Haggadah of 1526 set the tone for many future
printed Haggadah books .
It was described by one authority as "among the finest
productions of the 16th century printing press in any
language" .
This special new edition of the Gershom Cohen's Prague
Haggadah, is presented here
at the first time, fully coloured and lavishly displayed, to
bring esthetic and spiritual
enrichment to nowadays Seder table.
Forward your order to:
The Bialik Institute
P.O.B. 92 Jerusalem 91000
Tel: 972-2-6783554/116/120
Fax: 972-2-6783706
Israel
The Pedagogic Center
Director: Dr. Motti Friedman
Web site manager: Esther Carciente, esthers@jajz-ed.org.il.
Created:
April 15 ,1997