NOT IN YUDLOV Haggadah Ben Shemen 1948

NOT IN YUDLOV Haggadah Ben Shemen 1948

This is probably the one original Haggadah, there exist a couple of carbon copies from the typewriter as well. It was written from memory by a soldier from the religious regiment of the Haggadah in Ben Shemen in April 1948. The town had been completely surrounded since September 1947; they didn’t break the siege until July 1948, under constant fire. It begins, “This Haggadah is written because of the lack of Haggadot at the Ben Shemen base. The siege and its conditions did not allow us to have Haggadot this year.”
Hours before Passover began, a pilot took a small plane and, receiving fire from all sides, landed at the base with Matzot…and Haggadot. The last lines of the Haggadah say: “At the time when the last lines of this Haggadah are written, on the afternoon of Erev Pesach, an airplane arrived bringing Haggadot. This Haggadah remains as a record of the doubts of the squadron at the Ben Shemen base on Hag Pesach 1948.”

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