Yudlov 923 Haggadah Brilon 1849

Yudlov 923 Haggadah Brilon 1849

1849 Brilon Haggadah — Provenance of Max Guggenheim, Viehhändler of Lucerne

This Passover Haggadah, printed in Brilon in 1849, bears the oval ownership stamp of Max Guggenheim, identified as a Viehhändler (cattle dealer) in Luzern (Lucerne), Switzerland.

The Guggenheim family was among the historic Jewish families of the Swiss Surbtal region from the villages of Endingen and Lengnau in the canton of Aargau. For centuries, these were the only places in Switzerland where Jews were legally permitted to reside. Restricted from many professions, Swiss Jews often turned to cattle dealing and related trades, occupations that became deeply associated with Jewish economic life in the region.

Following Jewish emancipation in Switzerland during the 1860s, many families left the rural Surbtal villages and established businesses in Swiss cities such as Zurich, Basel, and Lucerne. The stamp “Max Guggenheim — Viehhändler — Luzern” appears to place this Haggadah directly within that historic migration. While no direct archival document has yet been located proving Max Guggenheim’s exact place of origin, the combination of the Guggenheim surname, the cattle trade, and residence in Lucerne strongly reflects the broader movement of Swiss Jewish families from the Surbtal into urban commercial life after emancipation.

The Haggadah thus preserves not only a liturgical tradition, but also the story of Jewish adaptation, mobility, and continuity in modern Switzerland. Through the survival of this single ownership stamp, the volume becomes connected to the wider history of Swiss Jewish emancipation and the transformation of Jewish life in the nineteenth century.

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