18th and 19th Century Haggadot with English Translation
Post date: Dec 12, 2015 10:39:43 PM
(See link to interactive map at end of article)
The first English translation of the Haggadah was published in London in 1770 by Alexander & Alexander (Yaari #167, Yudlov #257). The blog On the Main Line has a great post about this Haggadah. Until 1837, English Haggadot were only printed in London. The most influential translator was David Levy, who printed his first Haggadah in 1794 (Yaari #245, Yudlov #371). Whereas Alexander & Alexander printed two Haggadot in 1770; one for the Ashkenazi (German/ Polish) Jews (Yaari #167, Yudlov #257) and one for the Sephardi (Spanish/ Portuguese) Jews (Yudlov #258), Levy incorporated both customs into one Haggadah. But as a rule, one can say that the English translations of the Sephardi Haggadot were apparently less well received because Spanish/ Portuguese rite Haggadot were not often reprinted and mixed Ashkenazi/ Sephardi Haggadot were often reprinted with the German/ Polish rites only.
The first Haggadah printed in the USA in 1837 (Yaari #562, Yudlov #779) was actually a reprint of Levy's 1794 Ashkenazi/ Sephardi Haggadah but also in this case, the successive reprints were of the Ashkenazi parts only. The reason that so few English translations of Haggadot for the Sephardi community were published might be twofold. Sephardi Jews traditionally stayed longer religious and therefore more generations still knew and understood the Hebrew text hence there was less need for English translations. Furthermore, the Sephardi prayer books for the festival of Passover, called Machzor for Pesach, contain the complete text of the Haggadah (not included in the machzor for the Ashkenazi Jews) and Sephardi Jews would use these prayer books instead of separate Haggadot on Pesach Eve.
Yudlov lists 114 Haggadot with English translations printed in the 18th and 19th century. He does not list the newspaper article with the translation of the Haggadah text (Yerushalmi, plate 95 ) published in the London Times on August 17, 1840 as this was not a stand-alone Haggadah. So at least 115 English translations of Haggadot were printed between 1770-1900. Many of these were reprints (2nd, 3rd, etc. editions by the same publisher or copies of existing Haggadah translations but probably about 20 translators during this period have tried to create original translations.
I have created a visual representation of these 115 translations published during the 18th and 19th century which can be found HERE. Using the mouse and mouse wheel, one can move about and zoom in/ out for better readability.