'Next year in Jerusalem!': a Haggadah at Blickling Hall: a spectacular Haggadah, written and illuminated by Joseph ben David of Leipnik in 1739-40, is one of the most remarkable treasures in the library at Blickling Hall, Norfolk. Emile Schrijver discsusses the importance of this manuscript, previously unknown to scholarship

During the eighteenth century--some 400 years after the invention of printing--the craft of writing and the art of decorating Hebrew manuscripts flourished in central and northern Europe Apart from daily and festival prayer works of which several dozen survive, repeatedly decorated and meant primarily for synagogue use, these manuscripts were usually deluxe Passover rituals, works of Psalms, prayer-books for the Sabbath and smaller collections of occasional prayers, similar as circumcision manuals. The manuscripts were commissioned by the agency of well to do middle class and upper class hebrews whose names appear on many title- and dedication pages. (1)

single of the most striking characteristics of what ix usually called the eighteenth hundred school of Hebrew manuscript illumination is the fact that the manuscripts were modell after contemporary printed Hebrew works especially those of Amsterdam, which were set a value oned highly for their splendid typographical quality. Many European printers, from the beginning of the eighteenth hundred onward, even went so far as to print the word 'Amsterdam' in large impressed sign at the bottom of the page, where single would expect the name of the place of printing. This indicated that the work was printed 'with the alphabetic characters of Amsterdam', not in the city of Amsterdam. The Hebrew scribes of the eighteenth hundred adopted this custom and many scribes indicated that their manuscripts were copied in the turn of expression of the Amsterdam imprints. (2)

About 450 to 500 decorated central and northern European Hebrew manuscripts of the eighteenth hundred survive. It is not clear by what mode many have been lost. upon the one hand, quite a scarcely any manuscripts show signs of hard wear and tear, which may lead individual to believe that others must have been used smooth more intensely and were eventually disposed of as a be the effect On the other hand, plane these damaged manuscripts were repeatedly cherished in families as valuable possessions, which could be disposed of single with great difficulty, if at all. There is no reason, furthermore, to believe that many manuscripts were missing during World War II. Of course, manuscripts did disappear from former Jewish communities in pre-war Germany and Austria, on the other hand at the same time the Nazis were well aware of their value and each now and then manuscripts from these former Jewish collections appear for sale or in the hands of book-dealers and private collectors.

The earliest manuscript produc during this revival is probably a magnificent daily prayer work of 217 large folio leaves, copied in Vienna between 1712 and 1714 by the agency of Aryeh ben Judah Leib of Trebitsch, Moravia, which is now in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in of recent origin York. (3) it is puzzling on what account the new phenomenon started not upon with such an elaborate daily prayer-book, whereas the large majority of later manuscripts are smaller. Possibly the novel fashion developed out of the already existing custom of producing handwritten synagogue prayer-books with occasional decoration, which were ofttimes donated to Jewish communities through the well-to-do. Once a scribe had advance up with the idea to write his manuscripts in accordance with the Amsterdam printed volume tradition, others would follow. If this is indeed veritable most of the later, usually smaller, manuscripts that were apparently not made for the upper class were for the middle-class market. From Bohemia and Moravia the fashion spread through every part of southern Germany, Alsace and northern Germany.

The library of Blickling Hall, Norfolk, gripe [i]or[/i] grips an illustrated manuscript Haggadah, or Passover ritual, of the eighteenth hundred that was hitherto unknown in the literature upon decorated Hebrew manuscripts of the period. This Haggadah combines the Ashkenazic (High German] and Sephardic (Spanish-Portuguese) rites and was copied and illustrated in Altona, near Hamburg, in 1739/40 through the well-known scribe and artist Joseph ben David of Leipnik in north-east Moravia (now Lipnik nad Becvou in the Czech Republic). A Haggadah recites the story of the Biblical Exodus from Egypt and is read in the Jewish family during a festive meal upon the first two nights of the Passover festival. The Blickling manuscript contains the replete text of the Haggadah, with more [i]or[/i] less additional material, and is based upon the well-known printed Amsterdam editions of 1695 and 1712

Joseph ben David of Leipnik was certainly the greatest in quantity influential, although not necessarily the greatest in quantity productive, scribe of the eighteenth hundred We now know of fifteen manuscripts written by dint of him (all but one of which he illustrated), produc between 1731 and 1740; fourteen of these are Passover Haggadot. by the agency of 1731 he had left his native Leipnik for Frankfurt am Main. He then went to Darmstadt, where he produc manuscripts in 1732 1733 and 1734 and then settl in Altona no later than 1737 The names of a certain number of of his patrons are known [i]or[/i] part of to the other his colophons, and it is probable that he primarily earned his living by means of being a teacher in the richer circles, rather than as a scribe. In fact, he at no time refers to himself as 'the Torah-scribe', whereas a certain number of of his colleagues, who were apparently professionals, did. His name does not appear in the archives of the Hamburg and Altona Jewish communities. Joseph of Leipnik was certainly not the greatest in quantity skilled scribe, but his Haggadah illustrations, although naive, were real innovative and he introduced fresh themes, and especially a completely different use of colour; these qualities make him the greatest in quantity famous and most spectacular Jewish manuscript artist of the century