Verus Israel: The Plague of Darkness in the Sarajevo Haggadah

This study identifies the image of the plague of darkness in the Sarajevo Haggadah as a response to Christian missionizing, which in fourteenth-century Spain largely revolved around the question of who is Verus Israel . I argue that, as configured here, the image of darkness aimed to strengthen the faith of the Haggadah’s owner and his family in the face of contemporary Christian conversion strategies. The contrasting consequences of the plague for the Egyptians and the Israelites in the image convey the message that, contrary to Christian claims, God has chosen the Israelites as his people for eternity.