JERUSALEM — A quest is underway on four continents to find the missing pages of one of the world’s most important holy texts, the 1,000-year-old Hebrew Bible known as the Crown of Aleppo.
Crusaders held it for ransom, fire almost destroyed it and it was reputedly smuggled across Mideast borders hidden in a washing machine. But in 1958, when it finally reached Israel, 196 pages were missing — about 40 percent of the total — and for some Old Testament scholars they have become a kind of holy grail.
Researchers representing the manuscript’s custodian in Jerusalem now say they have leads on some of the missing pages and are nearer their goal of making the manuscript whole again.
The Crown, known in English as the Aleppo Codex, might not be as famous as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But to many scholars it is more important because it is considered the definitive edition of the Bible for Jewry worldwide.
The key to finding the pages is thought to lie with the insular diaspora of Jews originating in Aleppo, Syria, where the manuscript resided in a synagogue’s iron chest for centuries.
A turning point in its history came three days after the United Nations passed the 1947 resolution to grant Israel statehood, provoking a Syrian mob to burn down the synagogue. Aleppo’s Jews rescued the Codex, but in the ensuing years, the 10,000-strong community was uprooted and scattered around the world.
Earning trust
Scholars think that Aleppo Jews still hold many of the missing pages, while others have fallen into the hands of antiquities dealers. Two fragments have surfaced: a full page in 1982, and a smaller piece last year that had been carried for decades by a Brooklyn man, Sam Sabbagh, as a good-luck charm. Persistent rumors tell of more waiting to be found.
When the Codex reached Israel 50 years ago, it was presented to Izhak Ben-Zvi, the country’s president and a scholar of Jewish communities in the Islamic world. Although the manuscript is housed at the Israel Museum with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Ben-Zvi Institute founded by the late president remains its legal custodian and is behind the new search.
Past efforts, including some by Israeli diplomats and Mossad secret service agents, came up against a wall of silence in the Aleppo community. The new search has recruited a small group of Aleppo Jews, better able to win the community’s trust, and has yielded information on the whereabouts of specific pieces and on the people who are holding them, said Zvi Zameret, the Ben-Zvi Institute’s director.
“Only someone who believes that this manuscript is one of the foundation stones of the people of Israel, someone whose goal is not to get rich — only such a person can make progress,” he said.
He divulged few details lest he compromise the effort. He would say only that the search is being carried out in North, South and Central America, Israel and England, and that success appeared within reach.
“If there is a possibility, as the rumors say, that there are not only small fragments but also entire sections, that is extremely exciting,” said Adolfo Roitman, the Israel Museum curator in charge of the manuscript. “We’re missing entire books — most of the five Books of Moses, except for a few pages, and we have no Book of Esther, no Book of Daniel.”
He, like most other scholars involved, has met people who know of people who supposedly have pages. But the leads invariably end with people who refuse to talk.
Each page is priceless, but money wouldn’t be an issue for most Aleppo Jews because anyone trafficking in such holy relics could be banished by the community, Roitman said.
Some of the Crown’s pages bear an inscription warning that it “may not be sold.” Some people might be superstitious about the fragments they hold or believe they are rightfully the property of Aleppo Jews, not of scholars. Others might simply have no idea of the value of what they own.
Value is in the details
The Codex, on 491 parchment pages about 12 inches by 10 inches, was transcribed sometime around 930 A.D. by Shlomo Ben Boya’a, a scribe in Tiberias on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. It was edited by a renowned scholar of the time, Aaron Ben-Asher. Its completion marked the end of a centuries-long process that created the final text of the Hebrew Bible.
It belonged to a Jewish community in Jerusalem until it was seized by Crusaders who captured and sacked the city in 1099.
Ransomed, it made its way to Cairo, where it was used by the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who declared it the most accurate copy of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The manuscript doesn’t contain passages missing from other versions. Instead, its accuracy is a matter of details like vowel signs and single letters that would only slightly alter pronunciation. But Judaism sanctifies each tiny calligraphic flourish in the Bible as a way of ensuring that communities around the world use precisely the same version of the divine book. That’s why the Codex is considered by some to be the most important Jewish text in existence, and why the missing pieces are so coveted.
“The bottom line is that the whole process of putting together the text of the Bible ended with the Codex,” said Rafael Zer of the Hebrew University Bible Project in Jerusalem, which is using the Codex to create what is meant to be the authoritative text of the Hebrew Scriptures but can’t properly complete it without the missing pages.
Not enough has been done to find them, laments Hayim Tawil of New York’s Yeshiva University, the author of a forthcoming book on the Crown.
“For Jews and for Western civilization this manuscript is equivalent to the Magna Carta,” he said.
Historic trail
Central events in the story of one of the world’s most important holy manuscripts:
Around 930 A.D.: The Aleppo Codex is written on parchment in the Holy Land town of Tiberias by the scribe Shlomo Ben Boya’a. Its completion marks the end of a centuries-long process that created the final text of the Hebrew Bible.
1099: Now owned by a Jewish community in Jerusalem, the Codex is seized by Crusaders who sack the city. It is ransomed and makes its way to Egypt.
1100s: In Cairo, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides declares the Codex the most accurate copy of the Bible.
1300s: Some scholars think the Codex moves to Aleppo, Syria — how and when is unclear.
1947: On Dec. 2, a Syrian mob burns the synagogue where the Codex is hidden. Nearly two-thirds of the pages are retrieved by a congregant, Mourad Faham. But 196 pages vanish, including the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as pages from other books.
1958: Faham smuggles the Codex out of Syria to Turkey and then to Jerusalem, where it is presented to the president of Israel.
1982: The first missing page, from the Book of Chronicles, surfaces in New York and is sent to join the rest of the manuscript.
2007: Another fragment, a piece from the Exodus story of the 10 plagues, is sent to Jerusalem. Sam Sabbagh, an Aleppo Jew living in New York, had carried it in his wallet for decades as a good luck charm.
The Associated Press
