Sarajevo Haggadah, the 14th- century richly illuminated Hebrew manuscript, which was brought to Sarajevo through the efforts of Jews fleeing persecution in Spain, has been included in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, a senior official of the UN body said.
Haggadah in Hebrew means a story, handwritten on parchment, and it is read by family members on the occasion of the Jewish feast of Passover. It has been kept at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1894.
"We are celebrating the legacy of Heggadah on this occasion. It is an iconic heritage of the world. And, this beautifully illuminated manuscript was recently included in the UNESCO's Memory of the World Register," the official of the UNESCO office in India, here said.
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She was addressing a gathering at a function held by the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the ICCR on Thursday to celebrate the story of the manuscript to mark the International Day for Tolerance.
Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina Sabit Subasic in his address, described the Heggadah as a "symbol of survival".
The world body, while adding the Haggadah to the list, described it as a manuscript which represents an "exquisite example of the medieval Hebrew illuminated and decorative art".
According to the nomination dossier sent to the UNESCO for inscription last year, the Sarajevo Haggadah consists of "84 folios of parchment (without the blank leaves at the beginning and end, and the liturgical additions)".
It contains a series of illuminations on one side of the page only: 69 miniatures, which are spread across 34 folios at the beginning. The miniatures have frameworks in colour with spiral ornaments, it said.
"The illuminations show the history from the Pentateuch, starting from the Genesis, through Egyptian slavery and the Exodus, until the blessing of Joshua. The last four miniatures do not have a Biblical character," the dossier reads.
UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme established in 1992 is an international initiative that was launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction.
"The 109-page text known as the Sarajevo Haggadah was presented as a wedding gift in the 14th century to a young couple in Barcelona, Spain. In 1492, when Spain expelled the country's Jews, a refugee brought the book to Italy.
"A rabbi later brought the Haggadah from Italy to Bosnia and Herzegovina and passed it down through his family until a descendant, Joseph Kohen, sold it to the National Museum in 1894," the dossier said.
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