Abraham bar Jacob, a German-born Christian who converted to Judaism, created the copper engravings for this celebrated Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695. A skilled engraver working in Amsterdam’s Hebrew book trade, he illustrated the Exodus through the artistic language of the world from which he had come, adapting European biblical imagery for a Jewish ritual book.

His conversion is written into the book itself. The title identifies the artist as “Abraham bar Jacob, of the family of Abraham our father” (אברהם בר יעקב ממשפחת אברהם אבינו), language that places a convert within the family of the biblical Abraham. Here conversion appears not simply as a change of religious identity, but as entry into a people, a history, and a story—in this case, the story of the Exodus that Abraham bar Jacob himself helped Jews to visualize.

The Haggadah was especially important in the history of Jewish illustration. Its copperplate engravings offered a new visual vocabulary for the Passover story and became models for later illustrated Haggadot. The title page shown here places Moses and Aaron beneath six biblical scenes, surrounding the words of the Haggadah with images of Jewish sacred history.