(21 Apr 2016) The grandchildren of one of the earliest Jewish victims of the Nazis are laying claim to a jewel of Israel's top museum: the world's oldest illustrated Passover manuscript.
The descendants of a German Jewish lawmaker say the famed Birds' Head Haggadah, a medieval copy of the text read around Jewish dinner tables on Passover, was stolen from their family during the Nazi era and sold without the family's consent 70 years ago to the predecessor of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem - an act the family calls a "long-standing illegal and moral injustice."
The medieval manuscript, which tells the biblical tale of the Israelite exodus from Egypt, has long vexed scholars with its peculiar drawings of Jewish figures with bird-like heads.
Now, a new page in the manuscript's history is being written, as a high-profile American attorney who restored looted masterpieces by artist Gustav Klimt to their Jewish heir - a courtroom drama made famous in the recent Hollywood film "Woman in Gold" - is taking on the case.
The manuscript is currently displayed behind glass in a darkened room at the Israel Museum in a special exhibit ahead of the weeklong Passover holiday, which begins Friday.
The family wants the manuscript to remain at the museum, but it demands the museum pay compensation and rename the manuscript after the family, or face a lawsuit.
Written in southern Germany around 1300 by a scribe identified only as Menahem, the Bird's Head Haggadah has long been a riddle.
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