Pesach may be more than 10 months away, but that hasn't dissuaded a Bosnian publisher from releasing a limited-edition replication of a 14th century haggadah.
613 copies of the Sarajevo Haggadah have been created on hand-made paper that recreates 95 percent of the appearance of the original by, the head of the Rabic publishing house, Goran Mikulic, told Agence France Presse last week.
The number of copies was chosen to symbolize the number of mitzvot contained in the Torah. "The edition was printed in Italy and almost everything was done by hand," Mikulic said.
The original handwritten manuscript on bleached calfskin illuminated in copper and gold is the world's oldest Sephardic haggadah.
Jews expelled from Spain
It originated in Barcelona in the early 14th century and was brought to Sarajevo two centuries later by Jews expelled from Spain by the Roman Catholic inquisition.
During WWII, it was hidden from Nazis under floorboards in the house of a Muslim family in Sarajevo, from where it later returned to the National Museum.
During Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, when the museum came under attack from Bosnian Serb forces who kept Sarajevo under a three-and-a-half-year-long siege, the manuscript survived in an underground bank vault.
International experts, financed through a special campaign facilitated by the United Nations and Bosnia's Jewish community, restored the book in 2001.
In December 2002, it went on display at the museum.
The limited edition will sell for 1,150 euros a copy and the publishing house has already received 100 orders from abroad.
Around 400 Jews are living in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Reprinted with permission from European Jewish Press