On October 29 a gathering of a women's book group could be found in the Conference Room at Robbins Library. When the leader of this group discovered we owned the Sarajevo Haggadah after discussing People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, she contacted Robbins to see if we could provide time and space to view the Haggadah.  So, if you walked by on that Saturday morning, you might have heard the lively discussion,
emanating from within, and taken in the program presented by librarians, Ellen Wendruff (Robbins) and Marie Ariel (Winchester Library). 

As you may or may not know, the Sarajevo Haggadah was saved from destruction - since its creation ca 1350 - throughout its tumultuous history. Go to: http://www.historyofinformation.com/index.php?id=2362  for more information.

Our presentation touched on our personal connections to Jewish traditions and, according to one presenter: “how we saved the Sarajevo Haggadah.”  When Marie discovered Robbins was the sole owning library in the Minuteman Network, she recommended placing it into safer keeping!

The Conference room table sported an authentic seder plate and included kosher wine – which nobody was permitted to drink!  We surveyed the plate’s symbolic foods including an apples, nuts, cinnamon, wine mixture known as charoset, parsley, salt water, roasted egg, shank bone, horseradish and matzoh, with the recent addition of an orange. This culminated in opening the door a bit for Elijah.  See: http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/passoverfoods.htm for more
information on these traditional and more contemporary Passover symbols.

Other points of interest included: Marie’s handouts on timelines, viewing slides of the Sarajevo Haggadah, definitions of the words seder & haggadah, and differences between Ashkenazi Jews' and Sephardic Jews’ Passover customs.  Also touched on was whether or not the Last Supper was actually a Passover Seder, and the difficult years of the Spanish Inquisition around when the Sarajevo Haggadah was created.

We ended with refreshments of grape juice (what else!?),  matzoh, and a viewing
of the jewel itself - surrounded by other haggadahs the Library has in its circulating collection..

And finally - you may know - facsimiles of the Sarajevo Haggadah are not easy to come by - and not inexpensive.  We are incredibly fortunate to own!

The public is encouraged to come have a look at ours!  You can even view the old wine stain included in our facsimile copy and hazard a guess on when it got spilled on the 1350 original. Come to the Reference Desk anytime the library is open, contact:781.316.3233, or namethatblogg’s email:  ewendruff(AT)minlib.net