Background on the Szyk Haggadah
The current holiday season has given me a great opportunity to talk about the new edition of The Szyk Haggadah. Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) originally published his haggadah, a richly illuminated edition in gouache and watercolor, in 1940. It was printed in an edition of 250 and signed by Arthur Szyk and the historian, Cecil Roth. Roth also provided an introduction and commentary. Subsequently the haggadah was reprinted in less expensive editions in Israel, and could be found in many Jewish homes throughout the world.
New Edition
Recently, Historicana, under the direction of Irvin Ungar, created a new edition of the haggadah with permission from the collector who owns the original Haggadah artwork and Arthur Szyk's daughter, Alexandra Szyk Bracie. This version of the Haggadah uses current technology for extremely vivid illustration photos, and includes a new translation and commentary by Byron L. Sherwin, and a companion volume,
Freedom Illuminated: Understanding The Szyk Haggadah. I had the privilege of speaking with
Professor Shalom Sabar, from the Jewish Folklore and Art History faculties at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, who is one of the contributors to the companion volume, and in interviewing him, by email.
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Tomorrow is my daughter's last day in gan for the year and today is her end of the year party. We wanted to do something as a teacher appreciation. We decided to give the four teachers each one gift from the whole gan. Part of the gift is something returnable :) and part of it is something from the children. I asked all the parents to send a photo of their child and a quote "What is your favorite thing about gan?" Its a good thing I asked for this a few weeks in advanced. The head gannenet (pre-school teacher) also asked for quotes for the other gannenot and it might have been difficult to get the materials we needed given the additional requests. Small children do not have a large attention span for multiple requests for the same type of information. ...
