The Medieval Haggadah is published!

In my new work, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative and Religious Imagination, (Yale University Press, 2011), I explore four enigmatic, quirky, and interesting illuminated haggadot—manuscripts created for Jewish use at the home service of Passover Eve. These stunningly beautiful books include the earliest-known surviving illuminated haggadah, the Birds’ Head Haggadah, made in Mainz around 1300, in which many of the faces on the human figures depicted throughout the work are replaced with those of birds; the Golden Haggadah, from Barcelona, circa 1320-30,  the iconography of which seems so indisputably “formed in the image and likeness” of contemporary manuscripts made for Christians; and two Spanish “siblings,” the Rylands Haggadah and its so-called Brother, made between 1330 and 1340, which have historically been paired because of the similarity of their iconography and style.Rather than viewing the art in these books as merely illustrating the text or its commentaries, I attempt to understand these manuscripts to be visual commentary in and of themselves. I argue that they not only contain midrashic details, but evince a strong midrashic mindset.Though the importance of these manuscripts is universally acknowledged, they contain a number of fascinating elements which have been little explored. For instance, the Golden Haggadah includes forty-six distinct depictions of women, whose presence has been glossed over as mere “narrative detail,” and the faces in the Birds’ Head Haggadah turn out not to belong to birds, strictly speaking, at all, but to composite beings of deep significance in Jewish tradition.In examining these important works with fresh and creative eyes, I propose some startling new solutions to long-unresolved questions concerning the meaning of the art contained within them. But I also engage in analysis of this art as a springboard to addressing broader issues in the study of Jewish thought, visuality, and culture, both material and intellectual.The Medieval Haggadah has been described as  ”a groundbreaking work of great innovation.” It affords readers a glimpse into the minds behind the conception of some of the most mysterious and beautiful Jewish manuscripts ever created, and which allow them to view these breathtaking works through the eyes of the audiences for which they were originally intended. It is a lavishly illustrated book that presents, for the first time, the complete sequence of illustrations in each of the manuscripts discussed in full size and full-color. It is a must-have work for scholars of Judaism, the Middle Ages, and the history of art, as well as for those seeking a stunning gift for Passover, or for Jewish lifecycle events.

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