At the inaugural Maryland – Bosnia and Herzegovina Exchange Council gala, our board member Emir Nurkic Kacapor presented Senator Ben Cardin with a facsimile edition of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a faithful reproduction of the original manuscript in its entirety.
The Haggadah is an illuminated Jewish codex created around 1350 in the Kingdom of Aragon, likely in Barcelona, with 142 parchment leaves and 69 miniatures that tell the story of Creation, the Exodus, and the journey to freedom. At some point, through paths we still cannot fully trace, this book made its way to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
When German forces occupied Sarajevo in 1941 and demanded that the codex be handed over, curator Derviš Korkut and museum director Jozo Petrović refused. A book made for a Jewish family’s Passover table was protected by a Muslim curator and a Catholic museum director, hidden first in a Sarajevo mosque and then in a village high in the Bosnian mountains. Nearly seven centuries of exile, inquisition, empire, and war, and it endures because, at every turning point, someone chose to safeguard what belonged to someone else’s tradition.
Senator Cardin has spent more than half a century standing up for human rights, religious freedom, and the conviction that diversity is a source of strength. We wanted this facsimile, every page and illumination reproduced as it appears in the original, in the hands of someone who understands what it represents.
In both places, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have shown that neighbors can become partners, and partners can become family. Today our partnership is about young people who will grow up knowing that, on the other side of the ocean, there is a community that sees them and is willing to stand with them.
Honoring Senator Cardin’s lifetime of service with this manuscript was a deliberate choice. The values the Haggadah has survived on for seven centuries are the same values he has spent his career defending, and the same values this council was founded to uphold.
