Join The Loeb Music Library and the Judaica Division of Widener Library for an immersive curatorial experience this Wintersession! Try your hand at selecting materials, writing labels and promotional text, and preserving and mounting materials for an exhibition of Haggadot from Harvard’s collections.

The Haggadah is the central text used in the Jewish holiday of Passover. The text emerged in the second temple era (520 BCE-70 CE), and has been constantly made anew with illustrations, meditations, supplements, and altered versions of the sacred text. Explore the plethora of Haggadot in Harvard's library collections to marvel at Haggadot from throughout the ages.

As a starting point, examine the Music Library’s facsimile of the Barcelona Haggadah, a fourteenth-century Catalonian copy of the Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder – the original manuscript now resides at the British Library.

The program will run from January 17th to January 20th. Participants should expect a full-day programming schedule. No curation experience necessary, all levels of Passover knowledge are welcome! We will offer a presentation on the history of the Haggadah to establish a common ground of understanding. Capped at 10 participants.