From Persia to Jerusalem, a Passover Haggadah for Sir Moses Montefiore

Sir Moses Montefiore (1784-1885), born in Livorno (Tuscany) to a family from Ancona (Marche), is considered the Jewish philanthropist par excellence. Almost every Jewish community affected by false accusations and lies at the time bears his mark. In Italy, Montefiore failed to return six-year-old Edgardo Mortara to his family after papal police kidnapped him in 1858, when a servant claimed to have secretly baptized him. The case sparked international controversy, with Pope Pius IX refusing to return Edgardo. In contrast, he was able to intervene on behalf of Jewish communities in Persia and obtain guarantees from the Shah himself.

The National Library of Israel (NLI) recently announced a touching discovery related to this story at a time when the centuries-long “dialectic” between Israel and Persia reached a painful moment. Ahead of Passover, the library uncovered a rare handwritten Haggadah (the foundational text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder) within its collections.

Published in the 1880s, the manuscript contains a Judeo-Persian poem dedicated to Lady Judith Montefiore (1784–1862) that highlights the Montefiore family’s far-reaching influence across the Jewish world. The manuscript includes Judeo-Persian instructions for conducting the Seder and is bound with a printed Pesach Me’uvin, a compendium of holiday laws and customs.

According to Dr. Chaim Neria, Curator of the Haim and Hanna Solomon Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel, “The poem is a beautiful example of a ‘melitzah’ — a classic Hebrew literary device in which phrases from the Bible, rabbinic literature, and the liturgy are woven together to create a new statement — in this case, an honorific tribute to the Montefiore couple.”

Neria notes that almost every line ties the couple to the physical and spiritual rebuilding of Jerusalem, the centerpiece of the Montefiores’ legacy. This included building Mishkenot Sha’ananim, the first modern neighborhood in Jerusalem outside the Old City walls.