Everybody’s Book: The Story of the Sarajevo Haggadah, story by Linda Leopold Straus, illustrations by Tim Smart; Minneapolis: Kar-Ben Publishing © 2024; ISBN 9781728-486468; 32 pages; $18.99
SAN DIEGO – Approximately 673 years ago, the Sarajevo Haggadah was given as a wedding present, not in Bosnia but in Spain, where it remained until 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled those Jews who would not convert to Catholicism. The ancient and beautifully illustrated narration of the Passover seder was a treasure that the Jewish family carried with it over the generations, first to Italy and later to Sarajevo, Bosnia. There the venerated text was purchased by the National Museum in Sarajevo and the book became known as the Sarajevo Haggadah.
Jews were joined in treasuring this beautiful Haggadah by Muslims, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox Christians who all lived together in Sarajevo. During World War II, the German Nazis wished to seize the book, but the museum’s director preserved it by hiding it away, reportedly in the mosque of a remote village. It was returned to the National Museum after the war, staying there through the time that Yugoslavia remained united.
When Yugoslavia disintegrated and war broke out in the 1990s between two of its former territories, Serbia and Bosnia, the museum was bombed. A professor from a nearby Muslim university was able to save the famed Haggadah, one of the relatively few books which had not been destroyed in the National and University Library’s collection of 1.5 million volumes. Subsequently, the Haggadah was once again hidden away – this time in the underground vault of the National Bank until the war ended.
The Haggadah contains wonderful art works illustrating the famous story of the Exodus, when Hebrew slaves escaped from Pharaoh’s Egypt. The artistic treasure was carefully restored and returned to the National Museum, where people of Sarajevo’s four major faiths—Christian Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Islam and Judaism—continue to celebrate it as a book for everyone.
Author Linda Leopold Strauss tells the story in the clear and concise style necessary for children ages 4 through 8 to understand it. The illustrations by Tim Smart are quite imaginative, evoking the cities in which the Sarajevo Haggadah was domiciled and some of the dramatic circumstances by which it was saved from harm. Various illustrations emphasize the diversity of the religious beliefs of the heroes who protected the Sarajevo Haggadah at the risk of their lives.
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Donald H. Harrison is publisher and editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com