YUDLOV 1966 Haggadah Paris 1895

YUDLOV 1966 Haggadah Paris 1895

Communal Haggadah from La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland (1895)

This French-language Haggadah, printed in Paris in 1895, bears the blue institutional stamp of the Communauté Israélite de La Chaux-de-Fonds, one of the most prominent Jewish communities in Switzerland at the turn of the 20th century.

This volume most likely belonged to the community itself—most likely as part of a communal lending library.

Unlike many Jewish communities in Europe, La Chaux-de-Fonds was not destroyed during the Holocaust, as Switzerland remained neutral. The community survived the war, though it declined significantly in the decades that followed. Books such as this one were eventually dispersed, preserving traces of a once-thriving and highly organized Jewish communal life.