This Haggadah was written in 1771 by the Torah scribe Netanel, the son of Aaron Segal (סג”ל), about whom we have no further information.
Several entries on two pages preceding the title page indicate that the Haggadah had been the treasured possession of an old Berlin Jewish family for over 140 years.
From 1800 to 1860 it was owned by Elkisch Bendix. It subsequently passed to Bella Mannheimer, whose son Robert gave it to Max Bendix in 1900. In 1916 Bendix gave it to his oldest son Paul. The last entry reads: “Litzmannstadt Getto, 8. Mai 1942, Hedwig Bendix.”
Hedwig Bendix must have been one of those who had been deported from Berlin to the Lodz Ghetto. With the few possessions she was able to take with her, she also carried the old family Haggadah.
We do not know what happened to the Haggadah in the period immediately following the liquidation of the Ghetto in 1944. In 1946 it was acquired by Jacob Zvi Joskowicz, who had returned to Lodz from Nazi labor and death camps.
In 1968, while on a visit to Israel to celebrate the Bar Mitzvah of their older son Yaakov, Dr. Alfred Moldovan, the well-known Judaica collector of New York, and his wife Jean, saw the Haggadah in Joskowicz’s collection. They were fascinated by it and would not leave the country until they had added it to their own rich collection of Haggadoth.
The actual size of the Haggadah is 18×29 cm. It is written on parchment. A number of its pages are missing and the script is slightly impaired in a few places due to exposure to water. The damage must have occurred in the period during or after the liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto.
The Haggadah was first described by the late bibliographer Dr. Isaac Rivkind. In an essay on illuminated Haggadah mss. In the New York Hebrew weekly HaDoar (Passover Issue of 1963) he reproduced the title page of this Haggadah. As he did not have the Haggadah in front of him when writing his essay, Rivkind had to content himself with a short general characterization. It was he who named it the Tel Aviv Haggadah, for it was then in that city.
The Haggadah is outstanding for its fine script and its beautiful illustrations. All the illustrations, with the exception of that of the Seder of the Sages at Bnei Brak, are modeled on the copper plate illustrations of the Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695.
The Amsterdam Haggadah illustrations were famous throughout the Jewish world. They were copied and imitated by printers and manuscript artists.
The illustrations in the order of their appearance in the Haggadah represent the following: The Seder of the Sages at Bnei Brak, the Four Sons, Abraham destroys the idols of his father, the three angels visiting Abraham, Moses slaying the Egyptian, Pharaoh’s daughter finding Moses in the Nile, the plague of the frogs, the Egyptians drowning in the sea, the exodus of the Israelites, the giving of the Law, the Passover meal in Egypt, and, finally, the Temple in Jerusalem.
In the original Amsterdam edition of 1695 there are two additional text illustrations: Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh and David at prayer. The latter picture might have been on one of the missing pages in this Haggadah.
The scribe displayed good judgment in not copying his Bnei Brak Seder scene from the Amsterdam Haggadah. The Amsterdam illustrations were modeled on Merian’s Bible pictures (1625-6) and the Haggadah picture of the Seder at Bnei Brak is actually an imitation of Merian’s portrayal of Joseph’s meal for his brethren. This illustration does not fit too well the Haggadah narrative of the Seder of the five Sages.[1]
The title page of the Amsterdam Haggadah is adorned with the figures of Moses and Aaron, who are found also on the title pages of many other Haggadoth and Hebrew books. The two figures on the title page of the Tel Aviv Haggadah do not represent Moses and Aaron. The figure to the right, with a shield marked with a Star of David, is certainly King David. The tall figure to the left, one is inclined to identify as King Saul, who was “higher than any of the people from his shoulders and upwards” (Samuel I, 10:23) and whose spear is often referred to in the Bible.
The Haggadah contains instructions for the observance of the Seder in Hebrew and in Judeo-German as well as the Judeo-German versions of the hymns Adir Hu, Ehad Mi Yode’a and Had Gadya as they appear in old Ashkenazi Haggadoth.
“At the request of precious friends,” the scribe added to the Haggadah the abridged version of the commentary by Don Isaac Abarbanel.
Abarbanel, Bible commentator, scholar and statesman, who had been in the service of the kings of Portugal and Spain and later was forced to leave Spain when the Jews were expelled from that country, completed his commentary on the Haggadah, called Zevah Pesah (Passover Sacrifice), in Monopoli in Italy on the eve of the Passover of 1496. It was printed about nine years later in Constantinople and has since been reprinted many times.
The abridged version Tzli Esh was prepared by Rabbi Leon Modena of Venice and was first printed in that city in 1629.
The Tel Aviv Haggadah is one of the extant manuscript Haggadoth of the 18th century. The Orphan Hospital Ward of Israel, and its Director Rabbi Munish I. Weintraub, are to be congratulated for the reproduction of this wonderful Haggadah, to grace the Seder table of the supporters of this Institution.
[1] See: R. Wischnitzer Bernstein, “Von der Holbeinbibel zur Amsterdamer Hagadah,” Monatsschrift fuer Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, vol. 75 (1931). C. Roth, “Printed illuminated Haggadoth” (Hebrew), Aresheth, vol. 3 (1961).