From the Haggadah, illuminated manuscript page for Matzah




This letter from Michael Pincus was in response to my complete lackof knowledge as to where this came from and what inspired it.

Dear Aron,

The image you have from another site is of a piper (a jewish piper)which
is appearing on what I believe is the front page of a Passover Haggadah.

That is a book which tells the Passover Story of which the father reads
from as a guide through the evening celebratory meal and big family event.
Looks like Sephardic (Spanish) to me and not Ashkenazic (German/Poland)
since the Sephardic jews of Spain and Portugal, and England maintained
quite a varied musical tradiition. I'm pretty sure I'm right about it since I am
jewish and I have a collection of a lot of these sorts of things.
Ashkenazic jews teach that piping is not really an authentic "jewish"
instrument which off course is quite in error though the European jews
musical genre's are more inclined to violins and clarinets etc. Spanish
and North African jewry on the other hand is a bit different in its
orientation and the use of music as a religious expression was more
pronounced. Many people do not realize even to this day that a number
of Spanish dance trends were Semitic (Arabic and Judaic) at genus
and found their way into the Spanish world with migration and cultural
exchange in the 9th - 12th centuries.
I myself have a duda almost exactly like the one in the image
made for me by Dave Marshall along with a few others stands
of pipes that are more along the lines of what you find in Turkey
and Greece and in certain gypsy circles going back into the 1800's."

Michael


.....While in Barnes and Noble the otherday I came across a publication
of an illuminated Haggadah taken from Brittisharchives and this page
definitely does come from it. It comes from the Matzahpage. -Ed.