World ORT AMERICA MICHIGAN REGION -t/e/_5/e/vii&_5/ World-Wide Search E R From Maimonides to Brooklyn: The mystery of the Aleppo Codex. Dina Kraft Jewish Telegraphic Agency Tel Aviv FASHION FOR THE FUTURE: : Ceoat2t,t;i/ th,e/ c-C / frfr , PLEASE JOIN US FOR BRUNCH AT THE TOWNSEND AND A FASHION SHOW PRESENTED BY TENDER litm 9 . 22AL FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1ST, t/e/.5,e/ t/c/I- a/&-Crkv_57 'et/el 1,vei t/a PLEASE RSVP BY MONDAY, JANUARY 21ST, 2008 SPACE IS LIMITED COUVERT $95 FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT THE ORT AMERICA MICHIGAN REGION OFFICE AT 248-723-8860 OR MICHIGAN ORTAMERICA.ORG ALL PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT WORLD ORT SCHOOLS YOU WTI. T, HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A G11-1 TO ORT'S ANNUAL CAMPAIGN Educating individuals. Impacting communities. Improving the world. ORT AMERICA Lois G. SANDBERG MICHIGAN REGION OFFICE 6735 TELEGRAPH ROAD, SUITE ISO BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICHIGAN 48301-3172 Phone: 248-723-8860 Fax: 248-723-8861 1345270 A18 January 10 • 2008 I is been a long journey for the brittle pieces of parchment inked more than 1,000 years ago along the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The manuscript considered the most authoritative text of the Bible, the Aleppo Codex, was studied by Maimonides, ransomed by Crusaders and dismembered during rioting in the Syrian city of Aleppo. A tiny patch of the codex even spent several decades in the wallet of a busi- nessman from Brooklyn, N.Y. — Sam Sabbagh revered it as an amulet with sacred powers. In November, that fragment was brought to Israel, prompting a new drive for the return of the text's other long missing pieces. "Our feeling is that if there is one piece of it, there must be others:' said Michael Glatzer, academic secretary of the Yad Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem, which has worked to track and study the codex. The institute has launched a new campaign to bring other missing pieces of the famous codex home to the Holy Land. "We are trying to reach out to Jews from Aleppo who live all around the world;' Glatzer said, "to see if they have [pieces] and if they will come forward. "We would like to contact anybody who thinks they might have a piece of the codex. We are very eager to put this puzzle back together" About 60 percent of the manuscript is in Israel. It was smuggled in from Syria by a Jewish family in 1958, but more than a third of it remains incom- plete. Originally it was assumed that the remainder was burned during the anti-Jewish riots that broke out in Aleppo in 1947 following the United Nations vote partitioning Palestine. But an additional page presented by a Syrian Jewish family in the 1980s and recent forensic testing on the part of the manuscript that is in Israel found that the codex was not burned. That fueled speculation that other pieces --- A fragment of the Aleppo Codex, con- taining verses from Exodus 8, was recently was brought to Israel. may yet be found. "We are like detectives trying to hunt down these missing pages:' said Yosef Ofer, a professor in Bar-Ilan University's Bible department and an expert on the text. "Some of it did possibly burn or could have been stolen:' Ofer said. "Other parts could be with people, but so many years have passed that it might be in the hands of the second or third generation who do not realize what they have in their hands." Glatzer said the institute is negotiat- ing with several former members of the Aleppo community in hopes of retrieving at least part of the remaining codex. He would not give any further details about the discussions for fear of disrupting progress. The Jews of Aleppo, who trace their origins in the city to the period fol- lowing the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70, saw the codex as something holy in itself — a relic that protected them. They viewed them- selves as its custodians, believing that if any harm came to it their community also would be in danger. Soon after the synagogue that housed the codex was set ablaze in the 1947 riots, the Aleppo community fled to cities across the world. "It had an aura of sanctity beyond scholarly value. They were protective of it:' Glatzer said of the codex, which is also known as the Masoretic Text. It is thought that the 10th cen- tury text was written by a scribe named Shlomo ben Buya'a in Tiberias around 920. It was then vocalized and edited by Aaron Ben Asher, a renowned grammarian and scholar. From Tiberias it was brought to Jerusalem. After it was stolen by Crusaders, it was somehow bought back by the Jewish community of Cairo. It was there that Maimonides used it as the authoritative version of the Bible on which he based his famous commentary. Sabbagh, the Brooklyn business- man, found his small piece of the codex on the floor of the Aleppo synagogue after the 1947 riots. For years, he kept it in his wallet, refus- ing to part with it. He even kept it with him during open heart surgery. It took several years of negotiation after his death in 2000 for his family to agree to bring the scrap of the codex to Israel. The Jews of Aleppo, who had a rich history as a community of scholars and successful traders, remain a tightly knit community even in the exile. Aleppo's Jews established new com- munities in Israel, Brooklyn and Deal, N.J., as well as the South American cit- ies of Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo. The portions of the codex that have been retrieved are housed in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the Dead Sea Scrolls are located. The newest addition, the fragment carried in Sabbagh's wallet, soon will be included in the display. In small but still-legible Hebrew letters, it contains a few lines of verse from the Book of Exodus. Among them are the words Moses said to Pharaoh: "Let my people go, that they may serve me." Israeli scholars are hoping the quest to retrieve the remainder of the codex will help Jews. "This is the No. 1 asset of the Jewish people said Zvi Zameret, the director of Yad Ben-Zvi Institute. "And I believe the Jewish people would do a great deal to have it back." ❑