Haggadah Shel Pesah (Passover Haggadah), Offenbach:1795

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 USD

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Description

40 leaves (6 1/2 x 4 1/4 in.; 165 x 105 mm). Hebrew and Judeo-German in Hebrew characters; title page embellished with printer's emblem; numerous owners' notes on endpapers. Soiled; stained. some worming. Contemporary gilt-embossed Dutch paste paper; worn.

Provenance

Isaac Seligmann; Zalman Herlinger of Perlesham; S. Hirlinger- 1827; Bella Beudinger- 1875; Joseph ben Binyamin.

Literature

Yudlov, 382.

Catalogue Note

This well-loved Haggadah is a rare variant of one of a series of 1795 Passover Haggadot printed in Offenbach by Tzvi Hirsch Segal Spitz. The title page informs us that this volume reprises the first German translation of the Haggadah, printed in Berlin in 1795. The translation into German testifies to the impact of the Berlin Haskalah, the Hebrew term for the Enlightenment movement and ideology which began within Jewish society in the 1770s. Although not attributed on the title page of the present volume, this particular translation is actually the work of the maskil Joel Brill although it has often been wrongly ascribed to Moses Mendelssohn, the most prominent figure of the Berlin Haskalah. Mendelssohn's name was undoubtedly associated with the German translation in order to boost its popularity. This variant is unknown to Ya'ari.