Seder Hagadah LePesach - Services for the Two First Nights of the Feast of Passover.

(HAGADAH).

Israelitische Presse

Chicago

1879

Text in Hebrew and English. Prepared by Hayim Liberman. Illustrated.

Yudlov 1535 (without seeing a copy, but referencing the HUC Catalogue).

The First Hagadah printed in Chicago. highly uncommon. “The first [Hagadah] to contain illustrations influenced by the American environment.” (cf. Goldman no. 138, quoting Karp). “One of the few nineteenth-century editions of the Haggadah to be printed in Chicago. The illustration shown here is curious and (perhaps unintentionally) even amusing. Among the family seated around the table, the bearded father looks suitably patriarchal. The four young men would seem to represent the Four Sons (perhaps the only illustration in which they are together at the Seder meal). Seated beside the mother is the Wise Son, who is engrossed in following the Haggadah, and the only son wearing a skullcap. The Wicked Son is the mature man at the extreme right, puffing away at a cigarette and raising his hand in a gesture of challenge. Between the remaining two sons it is hard to say which is Simple and which “he who knows not what to ask.” Most striking is the contrast between the father and the Wicked Son. Did the illustrator intend to hint at the generation gap in an immigrant family?” (Yerushalmi 115, a later ed. of this issue).