HAGGADAH in the Heart of Sarajevo

In this post we bring you amazing story about Sarajevo Haggadah

The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains the illustrated traditional text of the Passover Haggadah. That is one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs in the world, with origins from Barcelona around 1350. Now The Haggadah is owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, placed in Sarajevo. Its monetary value is undetermined, but a museum in Spain required that it be insured for $7 million before it could be transported to an exhibition there in 1992.

It is important to say that Sarajevo Haggadah has survived many close calls with destruction. Historians believe that it was taken out of Spain by Spanish Jews who were expelled by the Alhambra Decree  in 1492. Notes in the margins of the Haggadah indicate that it surfaced in Italy in the 16th century. It was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894 by a man named Joseph Kohen.

In October of 2012, famous National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina was closed after going bankrupt and not paying its employees for almost a year, leaving future exhibition of the Haggadah in limbo and after two years, in September 2015, the Sarajevo Haggadah was again made available for private viewing, by appointment, at the newly re-opened Museum.