Shifrei Nusah ha-Haggadah im Peirusheha (Passover Haggadah, with commentary), Scribe: Abraham ben Abraham ben David el-Ghazi, Sana'a: [early 19th century]

32 leaves (8 3/5 x 6 in.; 212 x 152 mm). FOLIATION: [1], 2-31 [1], final leaf blank. Written in black ink on paper in Yemenite rabbinic cursive Hebrew script; headings in square Hebrew script; approx. 37 lines to the page. Title page with decorative architectural frame, accomplished in black and brown ink. Browned and stained; edges frayed; some worming. Owner’s inkstamp on title page; bookplate inside front pastedown endpaper. Brown buckram.

David Solomon Sassoon—his ms # 50

Ohel David, Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, 1932. Vol. I, p.341; 50.

The central column containing the text of the haggadah in this rare Yemenite manuscript is flanked on either side by the Etz Hayyim commentary of Yahya ben Joseph ben Tzalah (1713-1805), Chief Rabbi and Dayyan (rabbinical judge) of all of Yemenite Jewry, beginning in 1756. Yahya’s commentary first appeared in print in the 1893-94 edition of the Tikhlal, published in Jerusalem by Samuel Zuckerman. That text however, is severely abridged and does not contain the entirety of the commentary found in the present manuscript.