The Brother Haggadah

Book excerpt: The first-ever facsimile edition of one of the most beautifully decorated and important Hebrew manuscripts from medieval Europe Commissioned by wealthy patrons in the Middle Ages, the Haggadot are among the most beautifully decorated Hebrew manuscripts. The "Brother" Haggadah—so-called because of its close, fraternal relationship to the Rylands Haggadah in the collection of the John Rylands Library, Manchester—is one of the finest of these to have survived. Created by Sephardi (or “southern”) artists and scribes in Catalonia in the second quarter of the fourteenth century, it sets out the liturgy and sequence of the Passover Seder. This exquisitely produced facsimile of the “Brother” Haggadah is accompanied by an introduction by medieval scholar professor Marc Michael Epstein focusing on the historical background of the Passover and iconographic scheme of the manuscript; an essay on its provenance by Ilana Tahan, head of the Hebrew and Christian collections at the British Library; and an essay by Hebrew scholar Eliezer Laine that looks at the Shaltiel family, former owners of the manuscript. The book also contains a translation of the poems and commentary in the manuscript by the late Raphael Lowe, former Goldsmid Professor of Hebrew at University College London, and a translation of the Haggadah liturgy.