Passover Story from Harvard

Librarian's Lobby
by Daniel D. Stuhlman
March 2000

Passover Story from Harvard

In the March-April 2000 issue of Harvard Magazine is a short article by Deborah Schneider¹ about a Pesah haggadah that was issued for a seder in the Munich, Germany, area on April 15-16, 1946. This was first Pesah after World War II. As a collector of haggadot the idea that Harvard Magazine would publish an aricle about a haggdah and the content of this article was very interesting. The big A for the Army of the United States was familiar and even the idea of an Army run seder was familiar to me.²

Saul Touster, a retired attorney and professor at Brandeis University, was cleaning his father's papers and a pamphlet with the Army's big A, insignia of the Third Army fell to the floor. Upon examining it he found out it was a Pesah Haggadah. On the cover was the place and date, Munich Enclave, April 15-16, 1946. At first glance Touster thought the haggadah was for Army personnel in Germany, but as he examined it he was struck by the stark woodcuts of scenes from concentration camps. Touster realized that this haggadah recast the traditional text in terms of liberation from the camps.

Moved by the images, Touster decided to find out more about the pictures and why the Army published this booklet. He also wondered how the book came into his father's possession since his father had been a soldier in South Pacific and was never in Europe during the war or in 1946. After retiring from teaching American studies and legal studies at Brandeis, he had time to pursue his quest. This research project became like detective work as the pieces of the puzzle were assembled. He received help from many librarians.

It took him two years to uncover the story. His father was given the rare haggadah as a token of appreciation for his work helping displaced persons. Touster found the name of the Lithuanian writer, Yosef Dov Sheinson,who edited and arranged the haggadah. The ink drawings and texts in modern Hebrew and Yiddish were his work. Touster found the American Army chaplain named in the book, Rabbi Abraham Klausner, living in retirement in Santa Fe. One of Rabbi Klausner's official duties was to hold services for American GIs. He bent the rules to hold a seder for camp survivors. He wanted to provide a seder and a square meal for the undernourished civilians.

Touster identified the woodcut artist with the help of an archivist at Yad Vashem. The artist was Miklos Adler, a Hungarian artist who survived the war.

With his search complete, Touster was able to write the introduction and commentary for the facsimile edition of the Survivor's Haggadah with an English translation published in a trade edition by the Jewish Publication Society (2000). This haggadah is in my personal collection.

Notes:

1. During the revising of this article I noticed that my citation was incomplete. I searched my usual academic databases, EbSCO, ProQuest, Jstor and Google Scholar. None had the full text or even a bibliographic citation. I even asked another reference librarian for help. The magazine's entry in Harvard University's library system (HOLLIS) gave a link to Harvard Magazine's home page which had a link to their archieves. However. the archives only went back to 2001. I tried to phone their office and the call went to voice mail. Today (December 23) I got a reply from Allison M. Kern. She not only gave a nice reply, but also sent a PDF of the article. The full citation is: "Passover Story," by Deborah Schneider. Harvard Magazine March-April 2000 (102:4) page 92C.

Harvard Magazine is written for alumi of Harvard University. I don't know if they purposely are not indexed or the decision as made by Ebsco that this publication does not meet their requirements for inclusion. Saul Touster earned degrees from Harvard in 1946 and 1948.

2. For Passover 1943 the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the Army organized a huge Passover seder in Casablanca. My father was there.


 ©2003, 2020 by Daniel D. Stuhlman. All rights reserved.
Last revised Dec 23, 2020