The Haggadah, which is reproduced here, was printed in Hamburg in the year 1796.
In the 18th century the three united Jewish communities of Altona, Hamburg and Wandsbeck were famous for their great rabbis and Torah scholars.
In the German port city of Hamburg lived Ashkenazim as well as Sephardim. The community of the latter was founded by wealthy Marranos from the Iberian Peninsula, who arrived towards the end of the 16th century. At first the newcomers, who concealed their religion, were received with open arms. However, when it was discovered that they practiced Judaism, the people and clergy demanded their expulsion. In 1612 the Hamburg Senate, cognizant of the importance of the economic activities of the newcomers – among whom were financiers, ship builders and importers – permitted them to remain in the city as tolerated strangers in return for a yearly tax. Restrictions were placed on their observance of Judaism, but these were, for the most part, not rigorously enforced. In the middle of the 17th century there were about 120 Sephardi families (circa 600 persons) in Hamburg. In 1697 the authorities demanded from them, in addition to the yearly tax, a large one-time payment. As a consequence many of the rich Sephardim moved to Amsterdam. A number of Sephardi families settled in 1704 in neighboring Altona.
Ashkenazi Jews, apparently, settled first in Hamburg early in the 1620’s. They came from Altona, where Jews had been permitted to reside since 1611 by the Count of Holstein-Schauenburg. Altona Jews lived in Hamburg under the protection of the court. After the 1640 annexation of Altona by Denmark, they enjoyed the protection of the Danish kings. There was no legal basis for their stay in Hamburg. Their presence was tacitly tolerated by the Hamburg Senate and opposed by the people and the clergy. In 1627 Jews of Altona, fleeing General Tilly’s army, sought refuge in Hamburg. During the Swedish-Danish war (1643-1645) Altona’s Jews fled again to Hamburg. Fugitives from the Chmielnicki massacres stayed briefly in Hamburg in 1648. The following year saw the expulsion of all the Ashkenazi Jews from Hamburg, with the exception of a number of families, who had place themselves under the protection of the Sephardim and were officially registered as their servants.
Most of the expellees went to Altona from where they could, by paying an escort tax, cross into Hamburg for three-day visits to conduct business. In 1656 arrived in Hamburg a group of Jews from Vilna, which was then threatened by the Russian army. In the winter of 1657-1658, renewed hostilities between Denmark and Sweden forced Altona’s Jews once more to seek shelter in Hamburg. Those of the fugitives who remained in the city after the danger had passed were tacitly tolerated by the authorities. Only in 1710 were Ashkenazi Jews officially permitted to reside in Hamburg.
In 1671 the Ashkenazi Jews of Hamburg and those of nearby Wandsbeck – which was Danish territory and where Jews had been allowed to settle since the beginning of the 17th century – recognized the jurisdiction of the Altona rabbinate and formed with the Jews of that city a unified community. These communities had been associated earlier, but they separated in 1666. The new union existed until 1812, when the Ashkenazi Jews of Hamburg –which was then occupied by the French – had to withdraw from it.
The three united communities flourished during the 18th century. In Altona was situated not only the chief rabbinate, but also the Yeshiva. There was also in Altona a small Sephardi congregation, which was affiliated with the Sephardi community of Hamburg.
Rabbis who led the three combined communities in the 18th century included the following: Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Ashkenazy, known as the Hakham Zvi (he was rabbi of Hamburg and Wandsbeck; the rabbinate of Altona he shared with Rabbi Moses Rothenburg. After he left his post, following a controversy with Rabbi Rothenburg, the latter became rabbi of the three communities); Rabbi Ezekiel Katzenellenbogen, who served for 35 years; Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschuetz and Rabbi Raphael Kohen, who held the post for 23 years.
At various times Hebrew print shops were active in Hamburg and in Altona as well as in Wandsbeck.
Our Haggadah was printed by the “partners Nathan May and his stepson Hayyim”.
Nathan May’s father, Moses May, was the leader of the Metz Jewish community and the founder, in 1764, of the first Hebrew printing press in that city. Nathan set up his print shop in Hamburg in 1783 in partnership with a local Jew. Later he took his stepson for a partner. Nathan May’s print shop existed for 13 years.
The Hamburg Haggadah, 1796, features in addition to the text, Passover laws and Seder instructions in Judeo-German, as well as the Judeo-German versions of the hymns Addir Hu, Ehad Mi Yode’a and Had Gadya. The Judeo-German is printed in Ashkenazic mashait script.
This Haggadah is extremely rare.
It is, probably, also one of the few books in which the title Rabbi is vocalized to read Roobbi. This unusual reading was advocated by the grammarian Solomon Hanau (17-18 cent.), but was not accepted.
This is another old and interesting Haggadah, produced in facsimile by the Diskin Orphan Home. Rabbi Munish Weintraub, the director of the institution invested great efforts in the preparation of this reproduction, which is presented as a Passover gift to the friends of the Diskin Orphan Home of Israel in appreciation of their continued support.