Sometime in the late 15th century, an illuminated manuscript of the Haggadah came into the possession of a monastery in southern Germany, which then passed it on to the Christian Hebraist Erhard von Pappenheim, who appended a detailed prologue. The entire manuscript, prologue included, has now been published with a series of scholarly introductions. Philip Getz writes:

Although its illuminations are exquisite, what makes this Haggadah utterly unique is that some of them are also aggressively Christian. For instance, the quotation from Chronicles 21:16, “with a drawn sword in his hand directed against Jerusalem,” is accompanied by a Jesus-like figure raising a cross-like sword with one hand and folding two fingers and his thumb into the palm of his other hand to symbolize the Trinity. The same Jesus appears again several pages later when the Haggadah beseeches God to “Pour out Your fury on the nations that do not know You.” This time he is capped with a Judenhut and galloping in as the messiah on a white horse. . . .

The Latin prologue that precedes the manuscript contains something darker: a detailed outline of the seder, its laws and traditions, together with several classic (and innovative) versions of Christian anti-Semitism. . . . Nearly every element of Erhard’s prologue contributes to its meticulous depiction of a contemporary Ashkenazi seder. I say nearly because, written in as matter of fact a manner as the recipe for “herosses” [sic], we find the following: “If there is fresh blood, the head of the household sprinkles some drops—more or fewer, depending on how much he has—into the prepared batter, even though, they say, a single drop will suffice.”

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.