Infanticide in Passover Iconography

The pictorial tradition of the leprous Pharaoh legend began in manuscript Haggadahs of 15th-century southern Germany. The Midrash of "Exodus Rabbah" relates that Pharaoh was stricken with leprosy; his magicians prescribed a cure of bathing in the blood of 150 slaughtered young Israelites every morning and evening. The legend is also depicted in gory detail in printed Haggadahs from Prague (1526), Mantua (1560), and Venice (1609). Discusses the pictures, the genre, the Jewish martyrological tradition (especially in southern Germany), and the shared mode of discourse between Jews and Christians - the similarities between the Haggadah representations of infanticide and contemporary Christian depictions of ritual murder scenes. On the part of the Christians, stigmatizing the Jews - the perennial outgroup - as butchers of children served a social-psychological need. The Haggadah illustrations show that the need to demonize the outgroup was just as strong among the Jews; their unselfconscious use of the infanticide motif allowed them to express cultural tastes which they shared with their Christian neighbors.