The Emergence of the Passover Haggadah as an Independent Book Genre (13th–17th Centuries)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Katrin Kogman-Appel
• Subject Area: Religious Studies and Jewish Studies ; Art History
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 453105875

The precept to celebrate Passover every spring in commemoration of the liberation of Israel from Egypt is biblical (Exod. 12 and 13:6–8): a lamb is to be slaughtered and consumed; no leavened bread is to be eaten for seven days; and every father is obliged to tell his son about “what the Lord did for me, when I went free from Egypt.” The last implies that the performance of the ritual involves a significant didactic element, and a liturgical text was compiled toward this goal. Known as the haggadah, it was to be recited during a family-based ritual meal on the eve of the Passover holiday In the proposed project, I will explore the emergence of the Passover haggadah as an individually bound, often illustrated book, and it will, in effect, also be a chapter in a social and cultural history of the book. As a statutory prayer, the haggadah text was originally included in the general prayer book, the siddur, and occasionally also in the mahzor, the festival prayer book. However, when one opens a modern Jewish prayer book, one observes that the haggadah is no longer part of it. Pursuing a material approach to the book as an object, I will shed light on the social and cultural processes that determined the detachment of the haggadah (often as an illuminated codex) from the general prayer book, which has come to be understood as a long-term evolution between the 13th and the 17th century rather than a sudden phenomenon as was the former belief. I will illuminate the social and cultural factors that determined the handling of ritual books within the various Jewish societies (Central Europe, Italy, Iberia, and the Middle East) in an age of transition and migration.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants