The Sarejevo Hagadah, 15th century Spain Page from the Sarajevo Haggadah, written in 14-century Catalonia. Top: Moses and the Burning Bush. Bottom: Aaron’s staff swallows the other magicians’ wands (Exodus 7:10–1).

JNS

The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo is dishonoring itself and disrespecting Jews by politicizing the Sarajevo Haggadah, a mid-14th century illuminated manuscript created in northern Spain that is among the most noted illustrated Jewish books in history, the American Jewish Committee stated.

The museum said on Aug. 1 that it decided “to donate the income from the sale of the publication Sarajevo Haggadah: Art and History, as well as the income from tickets to see the Sarajevo Haggadah, for helping Palestine.”

“In this way, the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina provides support to the people of Palestine, who suffer systematic, calculated and cold-blooded terror, directly by the State of Israel, and indirectly by all those who support and/or justify it in its shameless actions,” it stated.

“At a time when we cannot justify ourselves with a lack of information, every averting our eyes, every feigned neutrality in the face of everyday examples of killing, starvation and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians, primarily women and children, is an expression of acceptance and complicity in the genocide that we are all witnessing in real time,” it said.

It also said that “as an institution that deals with the protection of cultural-historical and natural heritage,” it is obligated to warn that through the demolition of religious and historical locations, “the targeted erasure of the cultural and religious identity, primarily of the Muslims and Christians of Palestine, is taking place.”

The AJC said that the haggadah is “a symbol of Jewish resilience” that “survived the Inquisition, exile and the Holocaust.” “Now in Bosnia’s National Museum, its legacy is being tarnished by the museum’s decision to politicize the exhibit’s proceeds,” the AJC said. “By its recent actions, the museum disgraces itself and disrespects the generations of Jews who read from this haggadah at their seder tables.”

The haggadah was taken out of Spain either during or before the Jews’ expulsion in 1492, made its way to Italy, and from there, to Sarajevo, possibly via Salonika, which is how many Jewish refugees from Spain made their way to Sarajevo, according to Tel Aviv’s Anu‒Museum of the Jewish People.

In 1894, the manuscript was sold to the newly established Bosnian National Museum, then under Austro-Hungarian rule.