Hagadah shel Pesach. Service for the Two First Nights of Passover. According to the Custom of the Spanish, Portuguese, and German Jews. Translated by David Levi.

(AMERICAN JUDAICA).

D. Levi

London

1794

Hebrew and English on facing pages. With occasional instructions and translations in Ladino and/or Yiddish. Inscription at end by Dorothea Hart, Canada, 1822.

Yudlov 371; Yaari 254.

A scarce copy of the first separate printing of the Levi Hagadah. Precursor of the first American Hagadah. David Levi of London (1742-1801) produced a six-volume English translation of the Hebrew prayers, which served as the foundation for later editions published both in England and in America. Due to the accuracy of Levi’s translation of the Passover Hagadah in particular, it was reproduced almost verbatim in the first Hagadah printed in the United States, New York, 1837. Thus this 1794 Hagadah is the basis from which the first American Hagadah came to be derived.