However, reporter Geraldine Brooks was granted permission to actually see the real thing being restored under heavy guard in 2001 at the European Union Bank. This is not, as one review I read claimed, a novel so far from fact it is in the leagues of novels where the Confederacy win the American Civil War. The Germans went to look for that officer, who had been created in the minds of Dervi and Joza, while the two of them stayed to think about what they would do with the Haggadah. Some strands of the story are entirely of her own creation, such as the salt crystals which are traces of when the daughter of the scribe of the Haggadahs Hebrew text took her newly born nephew, and the Haggadah, to flee Spain after the end of convivencia and the Jewish expulsion of 1492. FLOC'H. When the Axis . It is hard to care much about Hannas turbulent relationships with her mother and her archetype of the tortured soul trope of a lover. Fragment of a panel from the tomb of king Stjepan Toma, Cross from pre-Romanesque church in Vrutci. Haggadah in Hebrew . Roman Emperor Diocletian spending his twilight years in his ostentatious palace in Split and the medieval olive oil makers who later took up shop in the abandoned basement ruins of his home. She used a very exaggerated example to ensure that the audience understood the full extent of her anger. The Sarajevo Haggadah is used to reveal how Herr Florian Mittl is not who he should. Mittl returns to his doctor with the Haggadahs clasps as payment for the treatment, saying, Please, Herr Doktor. On first impression, she seems to be a lost cause clinging to any sense of normal life she has left; however, at the end of the novel, Musarrat becomes the unsung hero offering a glimmer of hope for the wretched city of Kabul. Introduction. Dr. Eli Tauber is the Founder and president of the NGO Haggadah Sarajevo, assossiation for preserving and promoting Jewish culture and tradition. The Haggadah is owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.Its monetary value is undetermined, but a museum in Spain . Gitl was a character that wasnt even shown in the movie. When offering the clasps to Hirschfeldt he says, but he could hardly reveal the fact without exposing himself as a thief (Brooks, 124) This quote reveals another aspect of Herr Mitt that he is a thief. Dear visitors, It is with great pleasure that we would like to inform you that the original Sarajevo Haggadah is once again available to the public at regular times every Tuesday, fourth and first Saturday of the month from 12:00 to 13:00. The location of the gang and Leah were set on the wood and the field emphasizes their contradiction as human being. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. The stories and poems of the first section are set in rural Georgia and describe the lives of African American woman. There is a brief mention of the manuscript in the motion picture, "Welcome to Sarajevo". A tree was planted in their honor and they received a handsome Hebrew certificate testifying to their wartime heroism. The Sarajevo Haggadah is used to reveal how Herr Florian Mittl is not who he should. The haggadah (Hebrew for story, account) is a collection of . It is one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs in the world, originating in Barcelona around 1350. Used with permission. in positive and negative effects of coca cola. Described by Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, as a silent witness to history and survivor of the many turbulent moments in the story of the region, Europe and the world, the Sarajevo Haggadah is a truecultural treasure illustrating Jewish heritage and medieval art in Europe. The original measurements of the Sarajevo Haggadah are unknown. The "complex and moving" (The New Yorker) novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks follows a rare manuscript through centuries of exile and war.Inspired by a true story, "People of the Book" is a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity by an acclaimed and beloved author. "The superb medieval codex known as the Sarajevo Haggadah is certainly the most famous of Hebrew illuminated manuscripts: it is among the most beautiful: it is perhaps the most important. Almost 60 years later, Sarajevo was once again engulfed in violence. In other words, this particular illumination is most likely a representation of the first owners of the Sarajevo Haggadah who felt the mysterious woman (girl?) In a twist of fate, as an elderly woman in Israel, Mira Papo secured the safety of Korkut's daughter during the Bosnian war in the 1990s. The Sarajevo Sephardic Cohen family, due to a bad financial situation, decided to sell their Haggadah. This story by Adelisa Mai was originally publishedonBalkan Diskurs,a project of thePost-Conflict Research Center(PCRC). The Inquisitor certifies with his signature that the Sarajevo Haggadah does not contain any heretic materials, and therefore, it escaped being burned during the recurring public burnings of Jewish books. Dr. Eli Tauber is the Founder and president of the NGO Haggadah Sarajevo, assossiation for preserving and promoting Jewish culture and tradition. The Sarajevo Haggadah contains unique figural depictions and is the only Haggadah from that era that has been preserved in its entirety. Then, in 1941, Nazi Germany occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina and, with the help of thepuppet regime the Nazis had installed in Croatia, perpetrated the Holocaust against Bosnian Jews. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, particularly the way Brooks wove the clues Hanna finds together into a coherent story so readers can truly picture every step of the Haggadahs long and dangerous journey. 21 day forecast key west, florida. The desire to illuminate this ubiquitous liturgy is still alive and well. The Haggadah is a written collection of religious precepts and traditions used to mark Passover, the holiday that celebrates the liberation of the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery. Thus, in its main feature, the Sarajevo Haggadah is an . Nijemci su otili traiti tog oficira, kojeg su Dervi i Joza izmislili, dok su oni ostali razmiljati ta e uraditi sa Hagadom. The Sarajevo Haggadah and other sacred and historical religious documents had, at last, found a worthy home. [Hannah] dreamed of [herself] in flowing dresses with [her] long black hair grown out to [her] waist and a string of pearls at [her] throat(horton.1). Is she a convert? 4) The Sarajevo Haggadah was made in Barcelona around the year 1350. Hence People of the Book, a fictionalized version of the Sarajevo Haggadah's journey. Both novels show how these relationships do and dont work in society and how significant ideology is in the relationship. Despite Hannas first encounter with Michael seems to be innocent, Hanna later initiates the first sexual act between the two. Show More. These are experiences that all or most refugees typically go through in their process of finding a new home. The passage ends when the narrator shares her memory of eating, a bowl of pink mullet and green figs cooked in coconut milk, (lines 74-75) even clarifying that it was cooked by her grandmother. The order of the seder, or Passover meal, is set out in a book known as the Haggadah, which was sometimes richly illuminated in the Middle Ages, as shown here in the Sarajevo Haggadah, originating in Barcelona in the middle of the 14th century. The aforementioned olive oil press, set up during medieval times, in what remained of Roman Emperor Diocletians palace in Split, Croatia. Historians believe that it was spirited out of the country by Jews expelled by the infamous edict of 1492.At one point in the 16th century, the Haggadah appeared in Italy, as evident from notes in its . . The story of this book inspired Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, to trace the tortuous and terrifying travels of the Sarajevo Haggadah in her 2008 novel "People of the Book." The Sarajevo Haggadah belongs to the most famous and most beautiful Hebrew illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages in the world. The Cleveland Museum of Art's Performing Arts Series continues on Wednesday, October 28 at 7:30 with Merima Kljuo's "The Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book," a multimedia work for accordion, piano and video tracing the story of a precious Jewish prayer book's journey from medieval Spain to 20th-century Bosnia where it was hidden and rescued during World War II to its . Languages SERBIAN fluent CROATIAN fluent Hebrew fluent ENGLISH fluent, Association Haggadah The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina edited a new reprint of the Sarajevo Haggadah and presented it to the public on 1st February 2019, during the exhibition titled The Three Lives of Sarajevo Haggadah, organised on the occasion of the 131st Anniversary of the museum, with the support of UNESCO and the United States Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hannah was a very hard worker and by working night and day she became very good at playing the piano. In 1957, a facsimile of the Haggadah was published by Sndor Scheiber, director of the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest. . A dog chasing a hare over the biblical verse and they tortured us was an expression of a medieval Jewish convention, based on a Talmudic reading of Kohelet 3:15 that God will seek out the pursued (the contemporary Barcelona Haggadah, by contrast, has a representation of a dog serving a hare in the Messianic future). From marginal notations we know it was sold in northern Italy in . In this manner young Mira Papo survived the war and emigrated to Israel, where she successfully petitioned the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center to recognize the Korkuts as Righteous Gentiles. Public access to information is a key component of UNESCO's commitment to transparency and its accountability. wills o' nats last of the summer wine. It describes the highs and the lows of day-to-day life for the family, perfectly describing the universal refugee experience. Remembering is a huge part of this story and is represented largeley in many different ways. Toomer helps portray the lives of African Americans at the time and help to understand the struggles they faced. The Secret Story of Sarajevo Haggadah. Sarajevo Haggadah. The clamps of the haggadah are beautiful and delicate and by selling them it essentially adds more emphasis on the horrible thing he is doing than if he were to sell clasps that were cheaper and less elegant because readers more often emphasize with things of beauty than a less important object. The Sarajevo Haggadah was created in Barcelona, circa 1350, for a prominent Jewish family. The novel is not without its flaws, however. The Sarajevo Haggadah is physical proof of the openness of a society in which fear of the Other has never been an incurable disease. 12 verso) For the last and most terrible in a series of miraculous plagues that ultimately convinced the Egyptian Pharaoh to free the Jewsthe death of the first born sons of EgyptMoses commanded the Jews to paint a red mark on their doors. 10 Things You Need to Know about the Golden Haggadah. The 109-page text known as the Sarajevo Haggadah was presented as a wedding gift in the 14th century to a young couple in Barcelona, Spain. Expert in Jewish tours trough Bosnia and Herzegovina. 826 Words4 Pages. The Birds Head Haggadah is held at the Israel Museum and the famous Sarajevo haggadah at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The haggadah (Hebrew for story, account) is a collection of religious rules and traditions arranged into the order of the Seder observed on Passover, the holiday celebrating the liberation of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. It still remains unclear whether we will ever learn the date and place of the books making, the symbol of liberation, which has also become a symbol of Sarajevo. If you want to learn more about this issue download "The Passover Haggadah: Moses and the Human Role in Redemption" in Judaism, Vol. Tuesday The novel starts by introducing Mariam, in the beginning, shes a self-conscious young lady with a mother who is despicable and suffers from depression.Her father has entirely different family and shuns her when she tries to be indulged in his life. Established in 2002, the GEM Report is an editorially independent report, hosted and published by UNESCO. It is with great pleasure that we would like to inform you that the original Sarajevo Haggadah is once again available to the public at regular times every Tuesday, fourth and first Saturday of the month from 12:00 to 13:00. The name of the original owner is not known, and it appears to have been taken out of Spain in 1492, when Jews were expelled by the Alhambra Decree.There is a note written by a Catholic priest, Giovanni Domenico Vistorini, who inspected the Haggadah in 1609 for any anti-Christian . Their connection with the rulers of the Kingdom of Aragon is evidenced by the heraldic crests found on the title page. What a lie! Regardless of their own religious beliefs, they risked their lives and did all in their power to safeguard the Haggadah for future generations. The quotes showed nothing but the fact that father Benito was just one of many who were taught and made them to believe on what the Spaniards wanted them to know. In the first days following the occupation of Sarajevo by the German forces in 1941, German authorities demanded that Jozo Petrovi, the director of the Museum at the time, hand over the famous leather-bound codex. Hannah believed when Tant Rose said If [she] made a few sacrifices and worked hard [she] would be famous(1). Korkuts love for the Jewish citizens of the city extended beyond their precious Haggadah. A fervent advocate of the multi-ethnic culture of Sarajevo, he predicted that the Nazis would seize the Haggadah for the bizarre Museum of Jewish Civilization in Prague that Hitler had planned in future commemoration of the destruction of the Jewish people. The Sarajevo Haggadah is housed in Bosnia's National Museum, a building that was almost destroyed in the 1990s, during four years of war. Similar in many ways, both of these women are introduced in the novel as young children. Why? Schlinks presentation of the early stages of Hanna and Michaels relationship conflicts the readers understanding in Hannas morality when she is illiterate. The Floersheim Haggadah. It may have been a present for the wedding of members of two prominent families, Shoshan and Elazar, because their coats of arms a shield with a rosette/rose (shoshan in Hebrew) and a wing (elazar in Hebrew) are featured on the page showing the coat of arms of the city of Barcelona. The Devils Arithmetic, a novel by Jane Yolen, is very inspiring to me. Copyright 2023 IPL.org All rights reserved. It leaves a reliable trace in history again in 1894, when the National Museum purchased it from the Sarajevan Sephardic family Koen for the sum of 150 crowns. Additionally, as a beau geste to the City of Sarajevo, a second climate-controlled vault was funded to house the national archives of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the book Rivka was at the camp way before Hannah was and wasnt related to her. When Hanna first encounters Michael, she makes a friendly gesture by taking care of Michael after he has vomited. Za nju je bio zaduen kustos Dervi Korkut, koji je bio iznimno uen ovjek. sarajevo haggadah clasps Mittl, a book binder often used by the Austrian National Museum, suffers from a disease that causes him physical pain and mental difficulties. The last part of the book is a subsequently added poetic/ceremonial appendix containing poems by some of the most famous Hebrew poets from the golden era of Hebrew literature (10th13th century): Yehudah HaLevi, Yitzhak ben Yehudah ibn Ghiyyath HaLevi, Salomon ibn Gabirol, Abraham ben Meir ibn Ezra, and others. First post, here goes! A dog serving a hare (Barcelona Haggada, c.1350). Photograph by Midhat Poturovi/Transitions, used with permission. Whenever he visits as Sephardic community, whether in Sarajevo, zmir, Thessaloniki or Plovdiv, De Lucas says he is struck by that fondness. Mittls stealing of the clasps is inexcusable, and the Haggadah acts as a vessel for the reader to better understand Mittls, Dennis Kelly uses pathetic fallacy in the setting of Leahs monologue to describe how open she is as a person. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Contact Info: The tradition of reading from a haggadah in the family circle lead to the production of a relatively large number of such books. Sign up for True Story to receive nonfiction news, new releases, and must-read forthcoming titles. However, we notice the tragedy ends when Leah leaves, which explains she is the person who holds everything together. The Sarajevo Haggadah represents an exquisite example of the medieval Hebrew illuminated and decorative art. ForLuka Bokovi, a longtime volunteer at the National Museum, while Bosnia and Herzegovinas cultural wealth is invaluable, younger generations have little awareness of Haggadahs importance. Geraldine Brooks got the idea for her new book, "People of the Book: A Novel," while covering the Bosnian war as a foreign correspondent. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . Its origin and journey to Sarajevo, where it has been housed by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina since the end of the 19th . "The Haggadah is a kind of symbol of that and a symbol that can help Spanish people today understand that Sephardic Jews aren't characters from 16th- and 17th-century literature, but people who still exist and often live in communities that are . I have removed these from the Mittl family Bible, you must see these are very fine (p. 125). It affected me in a way that made me rethink the fact that maybe the country I live in might also be teaching students lies or that they are not teaching every detail of history. [5], During World War II, the manuscript was hidden from the Nazis and Ustashe by the Museum's chief librarian, Dervi Korkut, who risked his life to smuggle the Haggadah out of Sarajevo. It is known that the Haggadah left Spain after the expulsion of Jews in 1492, that it traveled throughout Europe and it most likely arrived in Sarajevo with Jews who had found refuge here during the 16th century.Find more about Haggadah at the link, Call us: +387 61 688 951Viber: +387 61 688 951WhatsApp: +387 61 688 951, Visiting original Haggadah in the Nacional Museum. Because haggadot are not considered holy texts, but rather instructional materials, over time they have developed into beautiful artifacts of book art. The circumstances under which it made its way into Bosnia, as well as when that happened, are unknown. Dating from the early decades of the fourteenth century, the Sarajevo Haggadah is thought to have been created in Spain. Inaugurated in Sarajevo, the exhibition curated by Aleksandra Buni and Mirsad Sijari follows the story and journey of the manuscript from the medieval Kingdom of Aragon all the way to Sarajevo, where the manuscript has been safeguarded by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina since the end of the 19th century. That is not what happened (100). [4] Notes in the margins of the Haggadah indicate that it surfaced in Italy in the 16th century. The Korkut Family. There is a brief mention of the manuscript in the motion picture Welcome to Sarajevo. In the beginning of the novel The Swallows of Kabul, written by Yasmina Khadra, the audience is introduced to the character of Musarrat, Atiqs wife. Sunday. The Haggadah includes various prayers, blessings, rituals, fables, songs and information for how the seder should be performed. RM 2CWPP68 - A woman cleans the window of an exhibit after it is closed in the National Museum in Sarajevo January 6, 2012. The discovery of the Sarajevo Haggadah in 1894 piqued the interest of art historians of the day, because the Haggadah is a rare piece of evidence proving that Jews, in spite of a strict scriptural prohibition (You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness, Exodus 20:4), engaged in highly artistic figural representation of humans and animals. Based on stylistic analysis of the illuminations and miniatures contained in its pages, it was determined that the book was made in mediaeval Spain, in the former kingdom of Aragon, most likely in Barcelona, around 1350. Therefore all these statements show that Hannah was a very devoted ignorant and hard working girl at the start of the, The story starts with two interchangeable characters, Laila and Mariam. crosby, tx police reports It suggests the tragedy will always continue and it is definitely inescapable. While the politicians argue, funding for seven of Bosnia's most significant cultural institutions has dried up, forcing the closure of the National Gallery last year and the Historical . Haggadah is the Jewish book of rites (codex), a collection of Biblical stories, prayers and psalms related to Pesah (Passover), the holiday to mark liberation of Jews from Egyptian slavery. [citation needed], When the project became public knowledge, Klein was surprised at reticence of some local Bosnian officials to support the project. She is pushed into society 's expectations of women 's roles and the pressure to satisfy society rather than herself. Notice the wine stains and hand-written commentaries, indicating the haggadah having been in extensive use during Passover celebrations. These clues and other oddities where are the book's clasps? Friday 5) Stains from wine and idle hand-doodles on several of the pages show that the Sarajevo Haggadah has been used extensively throughout the years. But still I chose Geraldine Brookss People of the Book to accompany me on my holiday this summer on a Mediterranean cruise. Rivka was supposed to be a friend, not a. Micro Preemie Ethics; The Sarajevo Haggadah. The story focuses on imagined events surrounding the protagonist and real historical past of the still extant Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest surviving Jewish illuminated texts. Proclaimed a movable national monument by Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2003, it was registered by UNESCO as documentary heritage to the Memory of the World Register in 2017, providing recognition to its importance worldwide. Photo by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bear explained what happened with the precious book during that time: Lejla Bear. A complete set of half page plates in Gothic style depicts the entire biblical story from Genesis through Deuteronomy. We still have the purchase agreement in our documents, says curator Lejla Bear. To stay independent, free, and sustainable, our community needs the help of friends and readers like you. Later, Mittl notices the remarkable beauty of the silver clasps on the Haggadah. 1. We know little of the first five-hundred years of the Haggadah. Contributions came from individuals, institutions and governments from around the world. A popular online lecturer, he is currently working on a three-volume history of the Jewish people for Koren Publishers (Jerusalem). Along with many other valuable items, the Haggadah was transferred to the National Banks vault, where it remained until the end of the Bosnian War. Brooks' characters all have different places in the Haggadah's journey; the characters connect with the book . Thanks to funds by the French Embassy at Bosnia and Herzegovina and UNESCO, the Haggadah is now exhibited twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:00 p.m. to 1 p.m., as well asevery first Saturday of the month during the same time slot. Wednesday The Haggadah was then sent from Sarajevo to Vienna for analysis and returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina, with certain vicissitudes, after a few years. 0. [1] dr. Eli Tauber. The Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the most valuable and unique items in the collection of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been publicly exhibited only on very rare occasions before 2018 usually on Passover and the museums birthday for lack of appropriate conditions. Before Ha had to flee Saigon, she was headstrong and selfish, but she was also a girl who loved her mother and couldn't wait to grow up. Facsimiles of the Sarajevo Haggadah at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. The amazing story of the 700 year old Haggadah, the Muslim librarian who saved it from the Nazis, and how his children were miraculously saved by Israel. [6], In 2001, concerned with the possible continuing deterioration of the Sarajevo Haggadah which was stored in a city bank vault under less than ideal conditions,[citation needed] Dr. Jakob Finci, the head of Sarajevos Jewish Community, appealed to Jacques Paul Klein, the Special Representative of the Secretary General and Coordinator of United Nations Operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for his assistance in ensuring the preservation and restoration of this priceless historical treasure. In the late 19th century a mysterious figure named Joseph Cohen sold the precious document to a museum in Sarajevo, where it currently resides as a treasured item of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the museums birthday and for European Museum Night, I see the same friends who sometimes manage to bring some other people. Tweet on Twitter . Find the latest Ideas, Multimedia content, Free courses, publications and reports. Geraldine Brooks certainly deserves a lot of praise for so vividly making this 500-year-old Jewish manuscript come alive. At first, they offered it to various Jewish associations, but nobody could afford it. Describes the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, which probably left Spain in 1492, then found its way to Venice, before being acquired by the Bosnian museum in 1894. Email: sarajevo@haggadah.org.ba, Monday At her core, Ha was a normal little girl. Published in 1988, in both Hebrew and English, it has no mention of a lamb shank! Sarajevo wanted the Haggadah exclusively. The doctor is unsure of how to accept the payment, since Jews do not own family Bibles -- he does not know what he would do the claps. 325. Book begins in the present day with Hanna Heath, a 30-year-old Australian book restorer called to Sarajevo . This content contains affiliate links. 6) Brought to Venice by Jewish refugees, there is a notation from 1609 made on the final page of the haggadah by Giovanni Domenico Vistorini of the Italian Inquisition. It was sold to the National Museum in Sarajevo in 1894 by a man named Joseph Kohen. This is an awful book. Aaron contributed to the story by adding a side of Hannah that suggests that she likes to tell stories. Has journey is a perfect example of the universal refugee experience. 1478: The Washington Haggadah, so called because its home is now in Washington, D.C., bedecked with splendid multi-color art with some strange-for-our-time misogynistic twists. The Seder illumination of the Sarajevo Haggadah with the mysterious African woman in the bottom left, who Brooks identifies as the slave Zahra bint Ibrahim-al-Tarek who created the images to help her Jewish masters deaf-mute son understand his religion. Branilaca Sarajeva 24 In the spring of 1942 he hid an orphaned Jewish girl in his home, telling his wife Servet to pretend she was, perhaps like the mysterious woman in the Haggadah, a Muslim servant. Our weekly email is chockful of interesting and relevant insights into Jewish history, food, philosophy, current events, holidays and more Dr. Henry Abramson serves as a Dean of Touro University in Brooklyn, New York. Brooks even daringly takes the most controversial illumination of the Haggadah, the one which shows an African woman partaking in Seder with a wealthy Jewish family, and posits that the mysterious woman whose identity has baffled scholars is in fact the artist herself. It opens with 34 pages of illustrations of key scenes in the Bible from creation through the death of Moses. An edited version is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement. Mysterious girl at the Seder table (Sarajevo Haggadah). The Floersheim Haggadah was created in fifteenth-century Germany, written on and bound in vellum with gold tooling. In 1992 during the Bosnian War, the Haggadah manuscript survived a museum break-in and it was discovered on the floor during the police investigation by a local Inspector, Fahrudin ebo, with many other items thieves believed were not valuable. 9) Even though we dont know for sure who commissioned the Sarajevo Haggadah, it is believed that the members of the family who financed it can be seen sitting around a table in the haggadah itself. And nowhere were such beautiful haggadots made as in the Spanish city of Barcelona during the Middle Ages. Related. Mariam is the banished child, due to Nana and Jalil having intercourse while unmarried, resulting in Mariam being illegitimate. This shows that Hannah is living in her own world with her hopes and dreams. If you are into historical fiction, biblio-mysteries, and books about books, the Sarajevo Haggadah is central to the story in Geraldine Brooks best-selling novelPeople of the Book. A detail from the Sarajevo Haggadah, in which maror, the bitter . Hannah has to remember anything and everything. From the Golden Haggadah, c. 1320, northern Spain, probably Barcelona ( British Library, MS. 27210, fol. It is a vegetarian Haggadah that celebrates compassion for all creatures. This site is licensed as Creative Commons Attribution 3.0. At our place you can get information about where to go and what to see in our beautiful and multicultural city. The first 34 leaves feature 69 illuminated miniatures showing the Creation of the World, slavery in Egypt, coming out of Egypt under Moses' leadership, and beyond, all the way to the succession of Joshua, son of Nun. The book begins with our book conservator protagonist Hanna Heath's commission to work on the famous Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish prayer book richly illuminated in paints derived from lapis lazuli, azurite, and malachite.