In the summer of 1863 the Trieste Italian-Jewish monthly ״Corriere Israelitico״ began to carry announcements of the forthcoming publication of a splendid edition of a Haggadah with illustrations, a new Italian translation and some musical notes.
״In this edition which will certainly surpass in elegance all those that preceded it, nothing has been left undone to make it perfect,״ the announcement said. ״The lithographs inserted in the text, the newly-cast type and the clear print, all combine to create a work which, no doubt, will be enjoyed by the Israelite public.״
In the spring of 1864 an announcement in ״Corriere Israelitico״ informed its readers that two editions of the Haggadah had appeared, one with the Hebrew text only, the text having been carefully corrected by A. V. Morpurgo, and an edition with a new Italian translation by the aforementioned Morpurgo.
The Haggadah was printed by Colombo Coen, a bookseller and publisher in Trieste, who printed Italian as well as Hebrew books. Abraham Vita Morpurgo was the editior of ״Corriere Israelitico,״ which, too, was printed at Coen’s printing press.
The Morpurgos were an old north-Italian Jewish family many of whose members had attained prominence in various fields. In Trieste there were several outstanding Morpurgos, among them the Hebrew Poetess Rachel Morpurgo. Rachel, who was greatly learned in Jewish tradition, was a Morpurgo by marriage and herself came from a famous Italian-Jewish family, the Luzzattos.
In his introduction to the Italian translation of the Haggadah, A.V. Morpurgo names the artist who illustrated the Haggadah: C. Kirchmayr. Kirchmayr’s signature can be noticed at the bottom of the decorative border of the title page; the Haggadah’s illustrations are signed with the initials C.K. Some encyclopedias of artists list a Cherubino Kirchmayr, born in Venice in 1848. If that year of birth is indeed correct, then this artist is probably not identical with our illustrator, as it is most unlikely that a fifteen year old would have been the creator of the Haggadah’s illustrations. However this possibility cannot be entirely excluded, because not all the illustrations are original. Quite a number of them are modeled on the pictures which appeared in the 1609 Venice Haggadah.
In 1864 when our Haggadah was published, Trieste was dominated by the Austrians under whose sovereignty it had come as early as 1382. In 1719 the Austrians declared Trieste a free port; this gave a great impetus to the city’s development. The Austrians withdrew this privilege in 1891 in reaction to the Italian irredentist agitation, but Trieste continued to prosper having become the principal port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, largely as a result of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. After World War I the city was annexed by Italy.
The small Jewish community, whose origins go back to the time before the period of Austrian domination, grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, Jews coming from far and near to avail themselves of the commercial opportunities it offered. The Jews did not suffer from any major legal disabilities and though they formed only a very small part of the city’s population they were prominent in commerce and trade.
In 1788 the number of Jews in the city was 760. In 1811, 2000 Jews lived there, and on the eve of World War I about 7000.
After the introduction of racial legislation in Fascist Italy (1938) the ca. 5000 Jews who were the living in Trieste shared the fate of all the other communities of Italian Jewry. In 1943 the Germans occupied northern and central Italy and began deporting the Jews. After the war about 1500 Jews were in Trieste. Their number later decreased to about one thousand.
The Trieste Haggadah is a momento of a period of growth and prosperity in the history of the city’s Jewish community. We are indebted to Rabbi Munish Weintraub for having spared no effort to make available to the public a reproduction of the beautiful Haggadah.
Tovia Preschel, 1979