Revisiting the Haggadah, A Couple of New Books Available and a truly rare collection is looking for a home

I wrote about collecting The Haggadah during Passover recently.  Within that post I wrote about The Szyk Haggadah.  Unknown to me at that time, Abrams was releasing a wonderful new, trade edition.  My copy arrived today and it is indeed, a lovely edition and cheap compared to the limited editions I wrote about previously.

Additionally, I learned of a new Yale University Press title that would compliment any growing collection of Haggadah editions.  Released May 9, The Medieval Haggadah:  Art, Narrative and Religious Imagination appears to be a wonderful new book!

I also would like to note that Anne decided that it was now okay, to acquire one of the Assouline Haggadah that I linked to in my earlier post.  We scored a true bargain, the book is outstanding and will be a wonderful pre-Bat Mitzvah gift for a special youngster preparing for her coming of age in 2012.



I stumbled upon a fascinating story of a rare library of seriously rare and important Judaica books, the Valmadonna Trust Library,  which went unsold at auction in December is now awaiting that special buyer.  For the minimum asking price of $25 million USD, a collection of over  300 hand written Hebrew documents, some nearly 1000 years old and over 13,000 printed works can be yours!  Rare book libraries simply don't have the budget and this collection must be kept together so until some deep pocketed individual endows a University, Museum or Religious Library, the collection will languish in the Sotheby's office in New York!