Seder Haggadah be-Lashon ha-Kodesh ve-Im Perush shel Marathi (Haggadah for Passover in Hebrew and Marathi), Haim Joseph Hallegua, Bombay: Abraham Jemal, 1846

41 leaves (9 1/8 x 5 ½ in.; 232 x 140 mm). foliation: [5], 1-34 [2]. Lithograph. Hebrew and Marathi on facing pages, with Illustrated title page depicting Moses and Aaron; an additional 13 vignettes illustrating the stages of the Seder, with a final illustration displaying the constituent ritual elements of the Seder plate. Neat paper repair on title and final leaf. Stained in places; some light worming. Modern marbled boards.

 



 

Yudlov 895; Yaari 656; Yerushalmi 97-8; Vinograd Bombay 4

THE FIRST PRINTED INDIAN HAGGADAH

The indigenous Marathi speaking Jews of India known as the Bene Israel ("Children of Israel) had for millennia maintained the basic vestigial elements of their Jewish origins (circumcision, dietary laws, the Sabbath, certain fasts and festivals, and the recitation of Shema Yisrael), despite their near-total isolation from the rest of world Jewry. When they began to settle in Bombay toward the end of the eighteenth century, their first encounter with normative Judaism occurred through contact with the Cochin Jews of the Malabar coast. Eager now to assimilate the many elements of postbiblical rabbinic Judaism that had been lost to them, they built their first synagogue in Bombay in 1796. The subsequent arrival in the city of Jews from Cochin and from the oriental countries enriched their opportunities for Jewish learning and stimulated a religious revival of which the Haggadah of 1846 is but one example.