Meet Your Neighbors: A centuries-old religious text remains a powerful symbol

by Margery Elfin and Marlene Berlin

One of our neighbors has a story to tell about a book she has never read, yet has made a strong impression on her. The book lies under glass in a museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and is known as the Sarajevo Haggadah.

A page from the Sarajevo Haggadah with Moses and the Burning Bush (top) and Aaron’s staff swallowing the other magicians’ wands (bottom). (image from Wikimedia Commons)

In the Jewish tradition, the Haggadah is read together around the Seder table during Passover. It relates the dramatic story that Jews around the world tell of their Israelite ancestors’ flight from slavery in Egypt and journey to a new home. A belief in one God, and a human desire to be free, compel a small group of people to look for the freedom to worship. These are a people who take many journeys over history to find new countries to practice their faith.

Scholars believe the Sarajevo Haggadah was created in the mid-1300s, and that the colorfully illustrated book is the work of both Muslim and Jewish artists. Wine stains indicate the book was read at many a Passover meal. The Haggadah, like Jews fleeing to a new home, traveled thousands of miles over centuries to come to rest in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, in 1894. It was hidden by many people along this arduous trek, from the Ottoman Empire through Spain, Portugal and Venice, until it reached the Balkans. Then, it was hidden from the Nazis during World War II and again during the Siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to 1996.

An illustration of a synagogue in the Sarajevo Haggadah. (image from Wikimedia Commons)

Our local connection to the Sarajevo Haggadah is Dzenita Mehic Saracevic, a Forest Hills neighbor whose roots lie in Bosnia. Saracevic cannot read the book because it is in Hebrew. Nor can she turn its pages, as it is under glass, but she tells me this small volume about the Exodus holds a position of reverence for her and for many others.

To Saracevic, the Haggadah is representative of the nature of her home country as a blend of religions and cultures with its own journey of survival. Muslims, Christians, and Jews – either Sephardic or Ashkenazi, depending on the period – lived together with other groups for years. Couples of mixed ethnicity and religion married regularly. Language was not a barrier to understanding. Bosnia was truly a nation of minorities.

And they did so through times of peace and war. In Bosnia, conquests were commonplace through the centuries. The small nation withstood the terrors and the pressures of many wars and invasions. Through it all, Bosnia persisted.

Saracevic is active in bringing the culture of her country to Washington, DC. She is a founder and chair of BHeart Foundation, whose mission is to support educational, cultural and social projects that help create a progressive Bosnia and Herzegovina, and develop travel study and exchange programs fostering connections between the U.S. and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Saracevic with the first generation of American students who travelled to Bosnia through BHeart’s Travel Study Program.

She sees the Sarajevo Haggadah as a symbol of her homeland; a material reminder of the possibilities of peace and friendship in the Balkans.

In 2017, the Haggadah was given heritage status by the United Nations. It is now kept in the National Museum in Sarajevo.

The Sarajevo Haggadah room at the National Museum in Sarajevo. The Haggadah is displayed with Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox manuscripts. (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Saracevic says tourists come from all over the world to look at this small book. Many are from Israel, but there are also people from Asian and European nations, and the United States. Some are deeply moved and cry; others stand in silence.

The Haggadah, of course, is also silent, but it speaks to all.

For further reading: Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book, a fictional account of the Sarajevo Haggadah’s story.