For years now, the New York Office of the Diskin Orphan Home of Israel- the country’s best known educational institution for orphans, children from broken homes and poor families, as well as children of newly arrived immigrants from various countries — have been publishing, with the approach of Passover, facsimile editions of Haggadot of historic interest for presentation to its friends and supporters. These reproduced Haggadot have been acquired by Haggadah collectors and Jewish libraries around the world.
The many richly illustrated facsimilie Haggadot published by the Diskin Orphan Home include The Livorno Haggadah, with Judeo-Spansh translation printed in 1825, and the Venice Haggadah (1716), featuring a Judeo-Italian translation and an abridged version of Don Isaac Abravanel’s commentary. Both these editions were prepared by Rabbi Leon Modena.
The Diskin Orphan Home has also published reproductions of illuminated handwritten Haggadot. Among them is a Haggadah from 1760, written and illustrated by the master scribe Chaim ben Asher Anshel of Kittsee, near Pressburg, now kept in the Library of Lubavitch Crown Heights, Brooklyn, N.Y. Another is a Haggadah written and illustrated in 1733 in Darmstadt, Germany, by Joseph b. David of Leipnik (Moravia). Joseph b. David’s Haggadot have been described as real masterpieces of 18th century illustrated Haggadot in the Israel Museum.
This year the Diskin Orphan Home has published a rare Warsaw Haggadah.
The Haggadah was printed at the Stereotyp Printing Press in Warsaw. The year of printing is not given. According to Abraham Yaari’s “Bibliography of the Passover Haggadah” (Jerusalem, 1960 – No. 2121), it was printed in 1929. Isaac Ludlov in his “The Haggadah Thesaurus” (Jerusalem, 1997-No. 2981), believes it was printed around 1925. He notes that according to the paper attached to a copy of this Haggadah in the possession of the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, the Haggadah was donated by its published in 5687 (1926-7).
The Stereotyp Press published other Haggadah editions, including some with Yiddish and Polish translations. Around 1935 the Sterotyp Printing Press published a second edition, and a few years later (probably in 1938) a third edition of the Haggadah described here. At the time of the printing, in the period between the two World Wars, Warsaw Jewry was Europe’s largest Jewish community.
The Haggadah is illustrated. The illustrations include three large pictures, each of which fills an entire page: A statue of Ramses II, who lived in the time of Moses; Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh: Pharaoh’s daughter finding Moses. (According to Yudlov, one or more of these pictures are the work of the 19th century French artist Gustave Dore’ whose illustrations of the Bible are famous.)
Other illustrations in the Haggadah are: A Family at the Seder, the Seder of the Sages in Bnei Brak , the Four Sons, as well as two series of ten small pictures which illustrate the Ten Plagues and the Had Gadya song. The last illustration, at the end of the Hagadah, shows an Egyptian horseman with his horse and chariot. In the third edition of this Haggadah there are some changes with regard to the illustrations (see Yudlov’s”The Haggadah Thesauraus”– Nos. 3506 and 3645).
The laws pertaining to the search for Chametz and its removal, those relating to the Eruv Tavshilin as well as the instructions for the Seder are given in Yiddish. Only the instructions regarding U’Rechatz ( the washing of the hands without saying a blessing) and Karpas (the eating of a small piece of vegetable dipped in salt water or vinegar) which are incorporated in a drawing, are given in Hebrew. It seems that this drawing was taken from a different Haggadah where all the Seder instructions were in Hebrew.
The headings and opening words of paragraphs in the original Haggadah were printed in red, and the last two pages of the Haggadah featured ads promoting wine grown in the Land of Israel (the ads are not included in the facsimile edition).
Rabbi Munish Weintraub, director of the Diskin Orphan Home , was instrumental in the preparation of the facsimile editions of this rare and interesting Haggadah.
The Jewish Press, Friday, April 8. 2005. page 52