The Moss Haggadah: A Contemporary Heirloom
WEINSTEIN, ETARAE B.
The Moss Haggadah I COHTEMPORHRV HEIRLOOM ETARAE B. WEINSTEIN The vivid, intricately detailed illuminations of Tlw Moss Haggadah reveal layer upon layer of Jewish history. Originally com- ...
...For example, Moss's page illustrating opening the door for Elijah "symbolizes the relationship between the inner Jewish home and the often hostile outer Jewish world," according to the artist...
...The new, four-color, one-volume, cloth-bound text includes Moss's English commentary and all the original pictures...
...What they envisioned as a one-year project required three years of careful research and execution...
...Bet Alpha Editions is now producing a coffee-table version for $175, In 1980, acting in the tradition of medieval patrons, Richard and Beatrice Levy commissioned arlisl David Moss lo create a single, handwritten, richly illuminated hag-gadak on parchment to become a family heirloom...
...Ronald Reagan presented one to Chaim Herzog as the country's official gift on the occasion of the first state visit of an Israeli president to the United States...
...The Levys decline to divulge how much lliey paid for the original...
...Of the 13 haggadot displayed, only one was dated after 1717— Moss's...
...Calligraphy, micrography (using small letters to form images), gouache, gold leaf, acrylics and paper-cutsare combined to stimulate the mind of the seder's participants...
...Now museums have snapped up these Moss facsimiles...
...The Bird's Head Haggadah, in which the Jews are shown with heads of birds to avoid representation of the human body...
...The artist illustratesjewish life through the ages, drawing on historical documents, medieval manuscripts and rabbinic and re-.sponsa literature...
...He wrote each curse in the local Jewish language using Hebrew characters, as was the practice...
...In a companion volume, Moss provides the key to his research, sources, symbolism and allusions...
...Each house has a cut-out, open door...
...The printing process, photolithography, employs up to 14 colors plus silver and gold foils—as compared to the four-color process used in ordinary printing...
...Attached mirrorsjuxtaposedwilh pictures of Jews from the Middle Ages link the reader to past generations that have retold the Passover story...
...In addition, it contains one paper-cut in an inside pocket...
...In 1985, Moss agreed to allow facsimile reproduction of the haggailah provided the copies replicated the appearanceof the original book exactly...
...On this door he illustrates 20 different houses, each in the style of another country at a particular point in time...
...In October 1988, the New York Public Library assembled an exhibit on the Hebrew book...
...L.aser technology makes it possible to include all the intricate paper-cuts...
...Originally com- missioned as a one-of-a-kind work of art and scholarship, it was made available to the public as a limited edition facsimile Tor §5,749 each in 1987...
...Moss uses a paper-cut overlay to represent the massive door that closes the bomb shelters still kept in service all over Israel...
...On each map Moss wrote the curse that the Jews of that time and place uttered against their persecutors when they opened their doors for Elijah...
...Moss surprises the eye and the mind at every turn of the page...
...The PragueHaggadah, with its enlarged plea, "Next year in Jerusalem...
...He chose Stampcria Val-donega of Verona to produce 500 facsimiles, most of which were sold within a year of publication...
...Open the large, gray bomb-shelter door to see maps of 20 countries that persecuted Jews, each map under its respective house...
...Museums feature illustrated medieval hag-gadot in their Judaica collections: TheAshke-nazi Haggadah, with its hunting scenes...
...Moss created a wide-ranging visual commentary on Jewish history in the Diaspora and in Israel...
Vol. 15 • April 1990 • No. 2
