A collection of rare and historic Passover Haggadas has been obtained from Harvard University for a special display at the Klutznick Exhibit Hall of the B’nai B’rith building here beginning today. Eighty items from the nation’s finest university collection of ancient Haggadas depict four-and-a-half centuries of Jewish history and Hebrew printing. The exhibition was arranged by Dr. Charles Berlin, bibliographer in Judaica and head of the Hebrew Division of the Harvard College Library, which has one of the world’s great collections of Judaica.
Early Hebrew printing represented in the exhibit includes the Constantinople Haggada of 1505, another printed in Venice in 1545, and the Bistrowitz (Poland) edition of 1593. The first editions printed in North America (New York, 1837) and in South America (Buenos Aires, 1934) are also displayed, as well as many Haggadas that appeared in Eastern Europe prior to the Communist take-over. There are also Haggadas from Aleppo (1887), Baghdad (1908), Bombay (1887) and Tunis (1925); and non-traditional Haggadas, including some published by Israeli kibbutzim; a bizarre version, known as “Hitler’s Haggada,” that first appeared in Rabat, Morocco in 1940.
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