The Hagadah shel Pesach Containing the Ceremonies and Prayers Which are Used and Read by All the Families, in All the Houses of the Israelites. According to Sephardic rite

(HAGADAH).

for the Translator by W. Gilbert

London

1770

With instructions in Ladino. Hebrew and English on facing pages. Translated by A. Alexander and Assistants. Engraved frontispiece of Moses slaying the Egyptian. Inscriptions on final blank recording ownership of the Hagadah by members of the American Gratz Family

Not in Yaari; Yudlov 258; cf. Yerushalmi 74

RARE. THE FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE PASSOVER HAGADAH. By 1770 the process of linguistic acculturation among Anglo-Jewry gave rise to this first issue of an English translation to the Hagadah. Indeed two versions were issued: for Aschkenazi Jews and the present Hagadah - according to Sephardic customs and usage. Lehmann in her Bibliography of English Hagadoth (no. 2) and Yaari (no. 167) record only the Aschkenazi issue, indeed the present edition is not in the British Library nor the Bodleian Library. Yudlov states he only saw a copy of the title-page in a private collection. Additionally this Hagadah represents the only known appearance of Ladino in Hebrew letters in a London imprint. Inscriptions on the final blank record ownership of the Hagadah by members of the American Gratz Family, passing exclusively from spinster aunt to spinster niece: Richea Gratz Etting (1792-1881) bequeathed the book to her niece, Rachel Etting Cohen (1825-1913), daughter of her sister Kitty. Rachel in turn, bequeathed the book to her niece, also unmarried, Eleanor Septima Cohen (b. 1858). See Malcolm H. Stern, Americans of Jewish Descent (1960) pp. 26, 49