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111 - [MANUSCRIPT] Haggadah An exceptional handwritten Haggadah in…
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Estimate €4,000 - €6,000
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Description
[MANUSCRIPT] Haggadah An exceptional handwritten Haggadah in Hebrew with ritual instructions in French, calligraphied in ink and embellished with gouache paintings on paper by L. Stuffel and ink drawings by Marcel Léopold. [1] 45 numbered pages, with 7 full-page, unnumbered illustrations interspersed throughout. Written on recycled paper bearing the coat of arms of the city of Avignon. (Worn cardboard binding). 21 x 15 cm The title page bears the inscription: ‘Written by L. Stuffel of Strasbourg during his stay in Grenoble in 1943’. This Haggadah is illustrated with original drawings by L. Stuffel as well as drawings by Marcel Léopold inspired by printed Haggadot. Dotted with small, naive drawings, the Hebrew text is written in beautiful square script. The headings are attractively decorated. The ritual instructions in French are written in beautiful cursive script. Among the main illustrations drawn by L. Stuffel are: The Seder platter (p. 7); An arm presenting the matzah (p. 10); Abraham and the three angels (p. 15); Adam, Eve and the serpent (p. 19); King David (p. 28); A stork (p. 30); The sacrifice of Isaac (p. 31); The three crowns: Torah, kingship and priesthood (p. 32); Jacob’s ladder (p. 34); The Had-Gadyah nursery rhyme (pp. 44 and 45); Final full-page humorous illustration (p. 88): A bottle chases a glass, saying ‘another’, whilst the glass runs away, replying ‘that’s enough’. Six full-page illustrations by Léopold: Abraham receives the three angels; the sacrifice of Isaac; Bithiah saves Moses; Moses turns the staff into a serpent; Moses and the Tablets of the Law; the Spies. On a loose sheet signed by Marcel Léopold is the following text: ‘This book was handwritten by Mr L. Stuffel of Strasbourg (who wrote this book in Grenoble, where he was living as a refugee). He was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1944 and deported. He never returned. I paid him around 300 francs, intending to provide him with further financial support as far as my means allowed. Unfortunately, his deportation made this hope a pipe dream.” A similar copy, but in in-16 format, written by the same scribe but without Mr Léopold’s illustrations, is held in the collections of the Museum of Jewish Art and History. We have very little information about Marcel Léopold, who came from an old Alsatian family. Having settled in Strasbourg before the war, he initially fled to Grenoble in the face of the German advance. It was in Grenoble that he commissioned this Haggadah from Lucien Stuffel. Unlike Lucien Stuffel, he survived the Holocaust. Lucien Léon Stuffel, the scribe of this Haggadah, was born in 1867 in Hattstatt (Haut-Rhin). Having taken refuge in Grenoble, he was subsequently interned at the Drancy camp and was on the list of deportees on Convoy 69 of 7 March 1944 to Auschwitz, from which he did not return. He served as a hazan (cantor) in numerous towns in Alsace and Switzerland, such as Bern, Lucerne, Fellering, Marckolsheim, Soultz, Bergheim, Molsheim, etc. He is also mentioned as a chohet and a schoolteacher. It seems that, like many hazanim from Alsace, he had a wide range of skills, and this Haggadah bears witness to his mastery of the craft of ritual scribal work. Given the type of paper used to write this Haggadah, one can appreciate the difficulties faced by Jews during the Nazi occupation. With no printed Haggadahs available, the need was immense and it seems, as confirmed by the loose leaf accompanying this Haggadah, that L. Stuffel wrote these Haggadot at the request of hazanim (ritual cantors) or members of the congregation to make up for the lack of printed texts. The first round-up in Grenoble took place on 26 August 1942. These round-ups continued until the Liberation. Keywords: Judaica, Jewish, Hebrew, rabbis, Torah, Hebrew, Hebraica, Judaism, synagogue, Zionism, Passover, Haggadah, Passover, menorah, Hanukkah, Torah, Juden, Israelite, Israel, anti-Semitism, Dreyfus, Megillah, Sephardic, ketubah
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About the sale Judaica
Auction location
Auction time 07/01/2026 at 2:00 PM
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