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A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah

A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah

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A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah The Prague 1526 edition of the Haggadah is one of the most important illustrated haggadot ever published.  It is perhaps the earliest printed illustrated haggadah for a Jewish audience and served as a model for many subsequent illustrated haggadot.[1] The earliest printed haggadah with illustration was published in 1512 in Latin and for a non-Jewish audience. That haggadah contains six woodcuts, and was intended as a response…

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Halakhah and Haggadah – Manuscript Illustrations and their Halakhic and Customary Significance

Halakhah and Haggadah – Manuscript Illustrations and their Halakhic and Customary Significance

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This post is part of a series of posts regarding illustrations adorning manuscript and print Haggadot. Our first post dealt with a new work on the topic and can be viewed here. In this post we will focus upon the some of the Halachik implications of these illustrations. In many Ashkenazic manuscripts, the Passover illustrations begin chronologically earlier than the Seder. Many begin with the preparation of the matzah. For example, in the Second Nuremberg Haggadah[1], (the manuscript is online…

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions – Part II

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions – Part II

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A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND QUESTIONS – PART II (Part I) by Eli Genauer The classic Vilna Shas, published by the firm of the Widow and Brothers Romm, was completed during the years 1880-86. It was the most complete and accurate edition of the Talmud printed until that time, containing many new Peirushim and using new sources to ensure the accuracy of text. This fact was not lost on the chief editor Shmuel Shraga Feiginsohn as he states in…

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Seforim Blog Pesach Roundup

Seforim Blog Pesach Roundup

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Here’s a roundup of Pesach and Haggadah-themed posts at the Seforim Blog. I. Racy Title Pages Update II 12.01.2005. Discusses the title page of the Prague Haggadah of 1526. This particular Haggadah used an illustration of a nude woman in the Haggadah’s quotation of Ezekiel 16:7 (“I cause you to increase, even as the growth of the field. And you did increase and grow up, and you became beautiful: you breasts grew, and your hair has grown; yet you were…

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Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past

Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past

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Modesty and Piety: Improving on the Past by: Michael K. Silber The Hebrew University of Jerusalem The well known “coat of arms” of the priestly Rapaport family first appeared as a colophon at the end of Avraham Menachem Rapa of Porto’s Mincha Belulah (Verona, 1594), fol. 207b, readily at HebrewBooks.org (here). Instead of a motto, a banner proclaimed the author’s name above and below the shield which featured a pair of hands raised in priestly benediction in the upper half,…

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions

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          A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND QUESTIONS By Eli Genauer Authors note: I would like to thank Dr. Peggy Pearlstein and Sharon Horowitz of the Library of Congress for their help in allowing me to assemble the various printed editions of the Talmud that I used in this article Amongst all the difficult tractates of the Talmud, Eruvin stands head and shoulders above most. The Gemara tries to describe in words what would normally take a picture to…

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