— A rare and valuable handwritten 15th Century Hagaddah, beautifully illustrated, has been denoted to the Hebrew University library by Mrs. James de Rothschild of London. Until now the Hagaddah has been kept at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where it was known to all scholars as the “Murphy Hagaddah.”
Last year a Yale professor discerned a catalog marking on the Hagaddah indicating that it belonged to the Baron Edmond de Rothschild collection. The university followed this up and learned that the Hagaddah, passed on to Baron Edmond’s heirs in 1937, had been stolen by the Nazis in World War II and subsequently disappeared. Yale offered it back to Mrs. de Rothschild who accepted it and promptly donated the treasure to the Hebrew University library.
The Hagaddah is the work of the famous German scribe and artist Joel Ben Simeon who was active in Germany and Italy in the mid-15th Century. His manuscripts, and especially his illustrated Hagaddat, are an important source for the study of Jewish art and culture in the Renaissance period.
Although Ben Simeon did not actually sign this Hagaddah, there is no doubt whatever that he wrote and illustrated the work.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
