Shabbat Gathering: The Szyk Haggadah.

Brian D. Johnson

Mar 31, 2023 • 5 min read

Szyk's illustration of a seder table.

Dear Chevra, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. I'll be joining you from the eastside of Madison! These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5113 1550
Password: 1989
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

Rabbi Laurie will not be with us tonight.

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Here we go.

A million years ago, when I was married and living in New York City, I watched a documentary about Arthur Szyk and his Haggadah. Days later, I was visiting my in-laws, hanging out in my father-in-law’s study. I was telling him about that documentary when I spied a Szyk Haggadah on one of his bookshelves. It was a beautiful edition, not an original (which was published in 1940, made out of vellum, 250 copies we printed and sold for $520/copy making it, at that time, the most expensive new book in the world) but that didn’t matter because my father-in-law's Syzk Haggadah had been lovingly and painstakingly reproduced and I was able to hold it in my hands and marvel at the illustrations. So, as we are days away from Passover, what’s the Syzk Haggadah?

Arthur Szyk, living life in Connecticut.

First, who was Arthur Szyk?

Arthur Szyk was born in 1894 in Lodz, Poland. When he was young, his teachers recognized his talent for art and sent him to Paris to study. He was fascinated by medieval illuminated manuscripts and this became a lifelong focus in his work. Then, in 1914, he joined with a group of his Polish-Jewish peers and traveled to Palestine to find out, firsthand, how to help the early Zionists. And this too became a formative experience for him. While he was in Palestine, World War I broke out and Szyk was drafted into the Russian army. He was able to escape and rode out the war in Lodz. Soon enough though, Szyk found himself involved in war again during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919. He served as an illustrator for Poland’s propaganda department. After the war, Szyk moved with his new family to Paris and found his style of full-color, highly-detailed illustrations.

The four sons. Any guesses as to which one is the wicked son?

The Szyk Haggadah.

By the time Hitler took power in Germany, Szyk’s die was cast. He was a successful Polish-Jewish illustrator who specialized in political caricature and fascinated by illuminated manuscripts. It was a small step for him to create a Haggadah illustrated with 48 paintings wherein Pharoah was Hitler and the Egyptians wore swastikas. Szyk’s edition was prepared in England, but in 1937 England, where appeasement was still the country’s official position, Szyk was censored and had to mute his illustrations by taking out most of the swastikas. In 1940, he moved permanently to the U.S. and became a citizen in 1948.

After the Haggadah.

It’s fair to say that, from his Haggadah onward, Szyk found his oeuvre as a propagandist on behalf of the Allies and Zionism. With the end of the war, when Szyk was released from his responsibilities to wage a propaganda war against the Axis powers, he kept his hand in politics and produced work critical of the Ku Klux Klan and McCarthyism.

Szyk's poster about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

Finally.

There’s a saying I've come to love over the years: “The moment you stop leaving Egypt, you’re back there again.” Over the years, Pharaoh has assumed many different guises. For Szyk, it was Hitler because sometimes Pharaoh can be clearly identified as oppressing us all. Sometimes, Pharaoh is more personal, even individual and interior. I’ll leave it to you to decide who’s your Pharaoh. I only speak for myself when I write that my Pharaoh is a combination of the political and the personal. I believe Jews are directly threatened today. The rise of Christian nationalism scares me. I also know that, within my own little world, I am enslaved by certain notions that restrict my ability to be happy or even at ease. All too often, I am afraid and feel alone. This Passover, let us become free.

I think that, in our own day and age, it’s apt to remember Arthur Szyk and the courage he brought to his life’s work. Szyk was one of those rare individuals who was given an immense talent and the courage to put that talent to work for the common good.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.