Haggada of Destruction

Hotsa'at ha-Histadrut ha-Tsiyonit ha-Ahidah ve-'Nahem' be-Germaniah, [Munich]: [1946].

In 1946, the survivors of the holocaust celebrated their first Passover just a few months after their own captivity. While there was an abundance of traditional haggadot imported from Israel and the U.S., the times were extraordinary and called for something different. With the horrors of the holocaust fresh in their memories, the survivors could much more easily relate to their own exodus. Furthermore, the suffering under the Nazis surely must have eclipsed that under the Egyptians. This environment resulted in this most unusual Haggadah which concerns itself with the contemporary version of Egypt. For example, Sheinzon's refashioned "dayenu" recalls all the major calamities that befell Diaspora Jewry, culminates with the holocaust, and ends with the statement: "Since all these have befallen us, we must make Aliyah..., build the chosen land, and make a home for ourselves." The present Haggadah, the first published in post-holocaust Germany, is thus one of the most unique and historically significant of all haggadot. The Jewish Publication Society and The American Jewish Historical Society each recently published a facsimile edition of this Haggadah. JPS's description relates that "for five decades this unique book was all but forgotten" and was only recently discovered in an attic.

This work was reprinted in the same year by the U.S. Army and was used for a communal seder in Munich in 1946 (Touster xxvi).

Heart wrenching!

Comments

[Daniel E. Levenson]

This is a really interesting post. I have noticed that there have been other haggadot that have also sought to become more relevant to the times in which we live, including those that focus on the plight of Russian Jewry in the early 1990's and the suffering of those in Sudan today.

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