On Wednesday, 17 December 2025, at 5 pm, we cordially invite you to a lecture by Boris Hajdinjak entitled The Sarajevo Haggadah. Habent sua fata libelli.
The lecture will be held at the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Maribor (Koroška 160, Maribor, room 2.13).
Among the most important customs of celebrating the Jewish holiday of Pesach are a solemn dinner called “seder” and a reading from the Haggadah, which tells the story of the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt. The content of the Haggadah is composed of many sources and is the most eclectic religious work. As a liturgical work, however, it has many variations, as different Jewish communities or even individual families may have their own Haggadot. At the same time, Haggadah is a type of Jewish book that has often been illustrated since the early 14th century. Illustrated Haggadot represent not only Jewish visual art, but also the everyday life of Jews. One of the most famous among them is the Sarajevo Haggadah, a renowned medieval, richly illustrated codex from the mid-14th century, which was most likely created in Barcelona and is kept at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. At the lecture, Boris Hajdinjak will present the pictorial richness of the Sarajevo Haggadah, as well as its significance and the unusual story and secrets that have accompanied this book from its creation to the present day.
The lecture, which announces the exhibition “Books of the People of the Book” in the Synagogue Maribor in spring 2026, is part of the international initiative Cities Embracing Jewish Heritage, supported by the European Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Jewish Culture and Heritage (AEPJ) and Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).
