The First Bowdlerized English Haggadah

Post date: Nov 19, 2015 10:06:19 PM

“I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou hast gotten excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.”

Ezekiel 16:7 (King James Version)

It should not come as a surprise that translators in the Victorian Age felt uncomfortable translating this text. What is surprising is that the first historic instance of self-censorship for this Bible quote by a British Haggadah translator was in the “Revised Hagada: Home Service for the First Two Nights of Passover” translated, edited and annotated by Rev. Aaron Asher Green from London, published in 1897 only towards the very end of the Victorian Age. Even the female-owned publishing house Abrahams & Sons had by then printed at least 4 reprints of their breast-mentioning Haggadah throughout the Victorian Age, and this in a period of “prudish, hypocritical, stuffy, [and] narrow-minded” people (Murfin, p.496).

Green translates the Bible quote as:

Green, 1898

Green was a well-respected rabbi, edited “The Jews’ College Journal, was minister in several Jewish communities (at the time of publishing Minister of the Hampstead Synagogue, UK), held office of chairman of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Departments’ Committee after WWI and was Chief Officiating Clergyman to Jewish soldiers in the UK. His translation, which was authorized by Chief Rabbi of England, was clearly influenced by Bowdler’s ideas.

In his preface to the Revised Haggadah Green writes:

Green, Preface

Green echoes here almost word for word Bowdler's preface. It is, however, interesting to note that the “one instance of departure” he mentions, is NOT the bowdlerization of the breasts but the change of the text in one of the latest additions to the Haggadah ST, a song towards the end of the Haggadah called “One Who Knows”. It is a playful allegoric numerical song probably inspired by 15^th/16^th century German folk songs. For the number nine, the song states “Nine are the Months of the Pregnancy”; Green changes this into “Nine are the Jewish feasts”. This is in line with the linguistic norms in literature of his time, e.g. “pregnant” is not a word used in Jane Austen at all. It was considered unseemly. When a woman was pregnant, she was 'with child", "confined", "unwell". If “pregnancy” cannot be used, for Green it goes, literally, without saying that the word “breasts” should not be mentioned in print at all.

Whereas his explicitly mentioned substitute for the months of pregnancy was not adopted by most later translators, his stealth omission of “breasts” was followed by many a translator. This is interesting in the light of a comment made by Mary Wilson Carpenter differentiating between the censorship of Bible and secular texts:

It is important to note that, although Bowdler’s Family Shakespeare appeared in the same year as Boothroyd’s New Family Bible, and although part of Boothroyd’s motivation may reasonably be ascribed to the same cultural swing towards moral seriousness born of evangelicalism that lay behind Bowdler’s Family Shakespeare, Boothroyd’s New Family Bible is not bowdlerized. Because of its status as the foundation of the English law, the Authorized Version could not be simply bowdlerized…..bowdlerization or abridgement transforms it into a different thing altogether.

Carpenter pp. 35-36

Green was the first to bowdlerize this breasts-mentioning Bible quote but did so almost 100 years after the publication of the Family Shakespeare. This might be due to the reason of sanctity ascribed to Bible quotes which might have caused predecessors to hesitate changing it. But what makes it all the more interesting is that his Bible quote change was picked up and copied while his change to the 15th/16th century “secular” song was neglected by most other translators.

This article focuses solely on English translations and in these A.A.Green was the first English translator to bowdlerize the word breasts. But was he the first translator (in any language) to do so? Answering that question conclusively would mean a much broader research of all pre-1897 Haggadah translations in all languages published before Green’s “shape” translation, something that goes beyond the scope of this current pilot study.

Still, a cursory check of some Haggadot translated into other languages from around the time Green worked on his, reveals the following:

As can be seen from the table above, occasional euphemism was already practiced by some other translators. Although the singular “breast” (which was first used in English translations in 1849) had already been used in 1844 in France and an even more euphemized “bosom” was introduced in Dutch in 1884, the word “breast/breasts” was commonly used by Haggadah translators in Europe. But even these euphemisms still make a clear reference to a women's chest.

The first Haggadah in the table above that uses the term shape instead of breast(s) was published one year after Green’s version and might have been influenced by Green. It seems that Green was not only the first English translator, but the first translator as such, who felt the need to bowdlerize this Bible verse but, as mentioned above, this cannot be said conclusively without doing major world-wide research.

Green did not bowdlerize the “hair” in this quote, probably because the word in both the ST and TT is sufficiently ambiguous to be understood as hair on the head. Indeed, many translators translated the term “your hair has grown/ sprouted” as “you have flowing/ long hair”. Most Jewish Bible commentators, however, maintain that the hair in this quote refers to pubic hair, one of the signs that a young girl grows into adulthood. In that case, it is a clear taboo word. It might be that quite a few translators (less learned/ professional) didn’t realize that the hair here is pubic. Some translators, however, are very aware of the intended meaning and either expurgate (e.g. Children's Haggadah. See below) or explicate it (e.g. New Haggadah. See below). While reasons for the former are clear, reasons for the latter could be an urge for clarity, an attempt to offer a scientific translation or a desire to “stand out of the crowd” with a new, different translation.

"I have increased thee as the growth of the field and thou didst become very numerous; and thou didst grow up like a beautiful girl, healthy and strong, but poor and without clothes"

Children's Haggadah, 1954, Shapiro, Valentine & Co. London

"I made you as populous as the plants of the field; you grew up and wore choice adornments; your breasts were firm and your pubic hair grew: yet you were bare and naked."

The New Haggadah, 2012, Beit Ha'Chidush, Amsterdam

As mentioned above, other references to sexual relationships can be found in the Haggadah text. It contains the obscure phrase “ פרישות דרך ארץ” (Prishut Dereẖ Eretz) which described what the Egyptians did to the Jews in Egypt and would translate literally as “breaking away of the ways of the land”. The first translation of the haggadah into English (Alexander 1770 London) indeed translated it as “the separating the custom of the land” but ever since David Levy’s 1794 translation, this phrase is translated along the lines all commentators explain it; as a compulsory separation between husbands and wives to prevent connubial associations. Levy’s translation is very explicit: “this denotes their being denied the company of their wives, to prevent propagation”, elucidating what was only hinted to in the ST. Almost a 100 years after Levy’s translation, it is again Green who is the first English translator to delicately bypass this potential “moral landmine” (although his footnote does hint to its true meaning):

This refers to Egyptian tyranny over Hebrew family life*

* According to a Talmudic legend, the Egyptian persecution of Israel took the form of imposing separations and restrictions in the home life of the people which added to their affliction and to the pity with which God regarded their bondage.

Green, 1897

Bowdlerization in Jewish Sources in General

Green’s claim that some words are not suitable for “the perusal of women and children” apparently still rings true today. For example, it is extremely difficult to raise awareness of breast cancer in Jewish ultra-orthodox communities because they will never print the word “breast” in their publications (cf. Shapiro, 2015).

Publishing houses catering to ultra-orthodox audiences (e.g. Feldheim, Artscroll) therefore have a policy of censoring texts like Ezekiel 16:7. Almost ALL haggadot in my corpus from the Artscroll/ Mesorah press are “breastless”. Until now I have only found two Haggadot from these printing houses that mention the word “breasts” and although these two differ one from the other, they were BOTH translated by the same translator who apparently managed to sidestep the companies' censors.

The most frequently used Haggadah, published and distributed for free by Maxwell Coffee House in the USA uses the neutral singular “breast” both in its original version 1932 and in the revised version (“without gender bias language and anachronisms”) which came out in 2011. What started with Green is still relevant today.

End Note

Marc B. Shapiro’s Changing the Immutable (2015) has a whole chapter on Jewish self-censorship of sacred sources in view of “Sexual Matters and More” (pp.184-211). Although he does not mention translations of the Haggadah text, he does touch upon immoral Haggadah illustrations next to Ezekiel 16:7 and English translations of other Hebrew liturgical texts e.g. prayers in the Hebrew prayer book that contain the word “urine” which is often not translated or euphemized.

Want to learn more about bowdlerization in the Haggadah? Read about what happened when the first woman translated the Haggadah!