By
Ben Jaglom
A Pesach tradition is on display at Leo Baeck College, Finchley, following the acquisition of an original edition of the Children’s Haggadah, published in Germany in 1933.
College librarian Annette Boeckler explained that the Haggadah had been shown in a Marburg museum of childhood, “where it was part of a collection of books and learning resources for Jewish children that was started by Barry Hyams and his wife Professor Helga Hyams in 1976”.
Following Professor Hyams’ retirement last year, the museum was taken over by the city of Marburg, whose offficers decided that the books would be better maintained by a Jewish institution.
Dr Boeckler explained that the Haggadah invoked powerful memories for older Germans. “Before 1939 there were a large number of German Jewish books for children.
“After the war they were mostly written by Germans in countries such as Argentina or Israel.”
Now an international favourite, the Children’s Haggadah was designed to be so simple to read that even very young children could understand it.