On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe held an event on 24 January, to present two exhibitions on the Sarajevo and Venice Haggadot.
The initiative, which is part of the calendar of celebrations for Holocaust Remembrance Day 2022, was presented at a conference introduced by Ana Luiza Thompson-Flores, director of the UNESCO Regional Office for Science and Culture. Speakers included our President Shaul Bassi, President of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mirsad Sijaric, and Karel Fracapane of the Global Citizenship and Peace Education Section for UNESCO. Also speaking during the debate was Helena Jesurum, author of the book ‘An Unexpected Investigation‘, which tells in a few pages the story of her Jewish brother who was forced to leave Italy as a child to avoid persecution and take refuge in Switzerland. The meeting was attended by the President of the City Council Ermelinda Damiano, who emphasised the importance of the exhibitions: ‘An occasion for great historical, cultural, civil and moral reflection,’ she said, ‘which, together with the other events organised by the city’s coordination, makes Venice an extraordinary example of memory-making.
Our exhibition “The book of liberation. Venice and the Haggadah of Pesach”, hosted from 24 to 30 January 2023 at UNESCO Venice in the beautiful Palazzo Zorzi, featured reproduction of some works by artists contain in the “New Venice Haggadah” publication. Intertwining different historical moments through stories and works of art, the exhibition aimed to demonstrate how a living Jewish culture opposed the attempt of annihilation with its own tools of religious and cultural memory and through a feast and a book celebrating freedom from slavery. It reminisced the religious and cultural memory by showing how the teachings gained through Haggadah can be applied universally.
As stated in the UNESCO’s website, following the opening remarks, Shaul Bassi described the Haggadah as a book of remembrance in the Jewish culture, which is read every year during Passover and is, therefore, extremely important in the preservation of memories. Recalling the Jewish history of Venice through the Venice Haggadah, he also explained the reasons for the book’s uniqueness, “The Haggadah is the only important illustrated book in the Jewish tradition and its visual form has often been renewed over the centuries. This has resulted in thousands of editions, among which the versions of Sarajevo and Venice are the most renowned and valued ones. Another quality that makes the Haggadah exceptional from other books in the Jewish culture, is its capacity to be read at home with one’s family.”
As reported in website of the city of Venice, our president also mentioned that “The Haggadah has been produced in thousands of editions over time. One of the most famous, if not the most famous, is the Haggadah produced in Spain but associated with Sarajevo where it has been preserved for many centuries, passing right through Venice. Another very important edition was created in this city in 1609 and honoured with a celebratory edition in 2016 thanks to the work of eight contemporary artists called upon to invent a new one. The book is the perfect embodiment of the idea that memory is always connected to the past, but is reworked in the present. The Haggadah can be linked to Holocaust Remembrance Day for several reasons, one of them being that the manuscripts are a model of how one can continue to remember by reading and sharing memories that are centuries old”.