Hagadah shel Pesach al pi Nusach HaRambam. * Appended leaf: "Hachlatath Vaad Agudath HaRabbanim D'Paris Bnogea LePesach …BeTzarfath" [“Decisions of the Committee of the Rabbinic Association Concerning the Passover Festival in 1941 in France.”]

(HAGADAH)

Nice

(1941)

Mimeographed Hebrew text. With stamp "Agudath HaRabanim B’Paris."

Yudlov 383; Yaari 2289; Yerushalmi pl. 160-161

EXCEPTIONALLY RARE HAGADAH, TOGETHER WITH THE DRASTIC PASSOVER REGULATIONS ISSUED BY THE RABBINIC ASSOCIATION OF PARIS IN 1941. In 1941, the town of Nice in Southern Vichy France was part of a "free zone" and not under direct German administration. Thousands of Jewish refugees fled there from Paris and other northern cities in France. As the Passover Festival neared, the Agudath HaRabanim (Rabbinic Association) of Paris based in the Hotel Roosevelt sought to provide Jews with Passover Hagadahs. Apparently none were available and so the French Rabbis issued a Hagadah derived from the medieval writings of Maimonides and copied from an available Mishneh Torah. The Hagadah was written in the neat hand of Cantor Cohen of the Nice synagogue and subsequently mimeographed for distribution to the refugees. The Rabbis (M. Shochetman, A. Hofstein and S. Rubinstein) also appended a sheet of emergency instructions for the coming Passover. The Rabbis state that the drastic circumstances of war have led them to alleviate dietary stringencies associated with the festival. Among their decisions, they permit the consumption of legumes and other foodstuffs normally forbidden. Even the use of tea may be ritually substituted for the Four Cups for those unable to procure wine due to wars' strained circumstances. A VIVID GLIMPSE INTO THE EXTRAORDINARY RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS OF FRENCH JEWRY DURING WORLD WAR II