Haggadah Collection University Ben Gurion
Post date: Mar 16, 2016 7:59:33 AM
Yesterday I visited the Ben Gurion University (Beer Sheva) to browse through their extensive Haggadah collection.
I would like to thank the librarian Mrs. Ethelea (Leah) Katzenell for telling me about the collection and her invaluable help getting me access to it and assisting me in every possible way.
I managed to examine only a very small section of the collection but will definitely return there to inspect it more thoroughly. Among the gems I found was a Jews for Jesus Haggadah with a quite interesting text (to say the least), See here a copy of the page describing the "Preparations of the Passover":
I also found a patriotic "Haggadah for Young American Jews", prepared by Isodore E. Lrakower, published in Philadelphia in 1951 which baldly starts its introduction "The Beginning of Freedom" with "July 4, 1776". Real freedom did apparently not come with the Exodus from Egypt but with the establishment of the US of A.
A real joy was finding the "On Wings of Freedom" B'nai B'rith Hillel Haggadah for the Night of Passover (1989), edited and translated by Rabbi Richard N. Levy. I found Levy's translations original and will definitely include this Haggadah in my research. (I would love to add this one to my personal collection. Does anyone have a spare copy of it?) This Haggadah also contains an interesting addition of cute songs, for example a song about the four sons ("Ballad of the Four Children") sung to the tune of Clementine:
But the cherry that took the cake was a Haggadah prepared for the Temple Shaari Emeth, New Jersey, prepared by Rabbi Philip E. Schechter. This is the kind of "photocopied from several sources, quickly thrown together" kind of edition. Not much thought went into the choice of materials and sources (apparently).
On the one hand, an extremely bowdlerized translation of the Echad Mi Yodea was chosen to be added (for more on bowdlerized Haggadot see my blogpost HERE). This translation goes even futher than the prudish Rev. A.A. Green who changed the "9 who knows" because he did not want to discuss pregnancy at the table with children present. In this translation, also 8 is changed (we wouldn't want to discuss circumcision either, G-d forbid!) and has become "Who knows Eight? I know Eight: Eight Lights of Chanuka". Rabbi Schechter did not create this translation. I have already located it in much earlier haggadah translations. But apparently this translation was readily available for photocopying and therefore added for Temple Shaari Emeth.
But in that same Haggadah, on the very next page we find a Song of Songs illustration which does not really align with the prudish sentiments of the translation just one page earlier:
I will probably find many more interesting curiosa on the Ben Gurion shelves, so thanks again Etheleh for making me aware of this collection. I will be back!