The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible
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Chapter 19: The Officer and the Scroll
Rafi Sutton’s account of the Temple Scroll incident comes from interviews with him in 2009 and 2010 and from an unpublished, handwritten memoir he made available to me. Additional information on Sutton’s time as an intelligence officer comes from an interview with his then deputy, Samuel Nachmias, in Israel in 2010.
Yigael Yadin’s account of these events comes from his English-language book The Temple Scroll, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983), as well as from his Hebrew book Megilat Hamikdash (Tel Aviv: Steimatzky, 1985). Yadin’s sense that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was symbolically timed is from his book The Message of the Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1992).
Chapter 20: Exodus
The scholars’ notes from July 11, 1963, and March 11, 1971, describing the conditions in which the Crown was kept, are from the archive of the Hebrew University Bible Project.
The opinion of the head of the Israel Museum’s conservation labs, Dudu Schenhav, was expressed at a meeting of the Crown trustees on May 27, 1971, the transcript of which is in the archive of the Ben-Zvi Institute.
The 1970 opinion of the outside conservators, Leah Ofer of the Israel Museum and Esther Alkalai of the national library, is mentioned in a December 6, 1970, document written by M. Peled, acting director of the Ben-Zvi Institute, and labeled “Internal Memorandum.” From the archive of the Hebrew University Bible Project.
The late president’s widow made her comments to a meeting of the institute’s directorate on August 12, 1974. The transcript is in the archive of the Ben-Zvi Institute.
Moshe Cohen recounted the story of his escape from Syria in an interview in Israel in 2010. Additional background on Israel’s covert efforts to extract Syrian Jews at this time is from an interview in 2010 with Yitzhak Shushan, an Aleppo-born former spy who helped run the operation on behalf of the Israeli government.
Chapter 21: Aspergillus
Details of the Crown’s restoration are from two interviews with Michael Maggen in his office in 2009.
The expert’s mistaken assertion in 1970 that “no biotic agent” had damaged the Crown is in a December 17, 1970, letter from Dr. H. Friedman of the Israel Fiber Institute. From the archive of the Hebrew University Bible Project.
The findings of Maggen, Polacheck, and their colleagues were published in Nature 335, no. 6187 (September 15, 1988). A scientific article on the same subject was published the following year: see I. Polacheck, I. F. Salkin, D. Schenhav, L. Ofer, M. Maggen, and J. H. Haines, “Damage to an Ancient Parchment Document by Aspergillus,” Mycopathologia 106 (1989).
The Jerusalem Post article that mentioned “parts of the once complete manuscript lost in a fire” is from the paper’s March 26, 2010, edition.
Chapter 22: Brooklyn
Leon Tawil recounted his story in an interview in Brooklyn in 2010. Isadore and Renee Shamah spoke to me in Manhattan in 2010.
The arrival of the page from the book of Chronicles was published in Hebrew by Malachi Beit-Arie of Israel’s national library in “Daf nosaf le-Keter Aram-Tzova,” Tarbitz 51 (1981–82).
The description of Michael Glatzer’s trip to New York on behalf of the Ben-Zvi Institute is from an interview with him in Israel in 2010. The researcher in Israel was Yosef Ofer, who published his analysis of the fragment in Pe’amim 41 (1989).
Rachel Magen spoke to me in Israel in 2009.
The letters and maps linked to the attempt to divine the location of the missing pages using a psychic are from the archive of the Ben-Zvi Institute. The letter requesting help from the Israeli military was sent by the institute’s director, Nehemia Lev-Zion, to his friend Amnon Shamosh in Kibbutz Ma’ayan Baruch on September 12, 1985. Shamosh confirmed the details to me in an interview in 2010.
Chapter 23: The Fog Grows
Amnon Shamosh spoke to me in Israel in 2009 and 2010.
The quote from Toussia-Cohen warning that Shamosh must be steered away from the controversy concerning the Crown’s ownership comes from a transcript of a meeting of the Crown trustees on November 19, 1985, kept in the Ben-Zvi Institute archive.
Menahem Ben-Sasson, president of Hebrew University, and Zvi Zameret, head of the Education Ministry’s Pedagogical Council, spoke to me in Israel in 2010.
Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider’s Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex was published by the Jewish Publication Society in 2010. Tawil spoke to me by phone from New York in 2011. The donor who supported the book, Murad Faham’s grandson Jack Dweck, spoke to me in Israel in 2009.
Chapter 24: The Agent’s Investigation
Details of Rafi Sutton’s Crown investigation are from interviews with Sutton in 2009 and 2010 and from the resulting program aired on Israel’s Channel 1 TV in 1993, Hatoanim Laketer (The Claimants to the Crown). The program was produced by Miki Laron and directed by Ido Bahat.
The treasurer Yaakov Hazan’s testimony that he saw the Crown nearly whole after the riot is mentioned in chapter 18.
Chapter 25: The Collector
Background on the market in Hebrew manuscripts comes from interviews with William Gross in Israel in 2009 and the Jerusalem-based book dealer Angelo Piatelli in Israel in 2009 and 2010.
Chapter 26: The Magicians
This interview with Shlomo Moussaieff took place in Israel on November 16, 2009.
Chapter 27: A Deal at the Hilton
This interview with Moussaieff took place in London on December 2, 2009.
Tammy Moussaieff spoke to me in Israel on January 5, 2010.
The catalogs of the Hilton book shows were made available to me by Angelo Piatelli.
Amnon Shamosh’s assertion that he had been called about an attempted sale of Crown pages by Haim Schneebalg came in an interview in Israel in 2009.
Chapter 28: Room 915
The account of Haim Schneebalg’s life and last days is drawn from articles by Zvi Singer in the weekend supplement 7 Yamim of the daily Yediot Ahronot on September 1, 1989, several weeks after Schneebalg’s death; by Amos Nevo in the same publication on May 14, 1993; and by Ben Caspit of the daily Maariv on November 30, 1990.
Chapter 29: Money
Zer spoke to me in Israel in 2008, 2009, and 2010.
This third interview with Moussaieff took place in Israel on January 5, 2010.
Chapter 30: The Missing Pieces
The interview with Edmond Cohen appeared in the ultra-Orthodox paper Hamodia on October 21, 1994.
Moshe Cohen, Edmond’s son, spoke to me in Israel in 2010.
The quotes from Rafi Sutton’s Crown investigation are from a copy of the investigation report provided to me by Sutton.
The passages from Amnon Shamosh’s Michel Ezra Safra and Sons are from the Hebrew edition. The translation is mine.
Chapter 31: Silo
Ben-Zvi made the assertion that he had received the Crown just one day after Shragai did at the first meeting of the Crown trustees in 1962 (this appears in the transcript of the meeting in the Crown file at the state archive). Many years later, on July 21, 1987, Shragai was interviewed by Michael Glatzer of the Ben-Zvi Institute about his role in the Crown story. He told Glatzer that he had decided to give the manuscript to Ben-Zvi immediately after receiving it but that “Ben-Zvi was not in Jerusalem that day.” He continued: “The next day I called Ben-Zvi and he asked me to come and bring the Crown with me.” Glatzer’s notes of the meeting are in the archive of the Ben-Zvi Institute.
A copy of Shragai’s July 28, 1964, letter about a “worldwide public scandal” was provided to me by Ezra Kassin. I later found the original in the archive of Eliyahu Elath, president of Hebrew University at the time, to whom the letter was addressed. (This archive is kept at the university’s Mount Scopus campus.) The full text reads:
There are complications in the matter of the Crown of the Torah. The man who brought the book of the Torah, and who is in the United States, can no longer control himself despite all my calming letters
and despite my oral conversations with him.
I am very afraid that the matter will be made known and turn into a worldwide public scandal.
If there is no way to arrange the matter, I will have no choice but to insist that the Crown of the Torah be closed and the keys kept by you, that no one be able to use the Crown of the Torah, and that all research work be halted.
This proposal is the result of desperation and of my view of the severity of the situation and of what could happen if we do not find a way to solve the problem in keeping with the law and the conditions of the trusteeship agreement. I am very sorry that I must write this letter, but I do not consider myself free to exempt myself from it.
Faham’s testimony regarding the “robbery of immigrants” in Alexandretta is in the Crown file at the state archive in Jerusalem.
Leon Naftali spoke to me in Israel in 2010.
The letter from the immigration agent regarding a complaint about missing luggage was sent to the Aliya Department in Jerusalem on November 29, 1962. From the Jewish Agency archive.
The “David Sasson” note is preserved in one of Ben-Zvi’s notebooks now kept in the state archive in Jerusalem. I am grateful to Professor Yosef Ofer, who found this note in the 1980s, for telling me where it could be found among the dozens of files and hundreds of notebooks included among Ben-Zvi’s documents.
Silo’s son spoke to me in the United States in 2010. Faham’s son Avraham Pe’er spoke to me in Israel in 2010.
Professor Yosef Ofer spoke to me in Israel in 2009.
Chapter 32: The Institute
Benjamin Richler of the national library put his knowledge at my disposal on several occasions in 2010.
The termination of Benayahu’s employment at the Ben-Zvi Institute in October 1970 is mentioned in an April 9, 1971, letter from the acting director M. Peled to Dudu Schenhav of the Israel Museum.
Dr. Zvi Zameret spoke to me in Israel in 2010.
Professor Joseph Hacker spoke to me in Israel in 2011.
PHOTO CREDITS
Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Ernst Herzfeld, 1946. Photographer: Ernst Herzfeld, Negative Number 5177.
Courtesy of Asher Ron, grandson of Asher Baghdadi.
Courtesy of David Cassuto. Photographer: Efraim Degani.
Courtesy of Rafi Sutton.
Courtesy of the Israel State Archive, Jerusalem.
Courtesy of the Ben-Zvi Institute.
Courtesy of the Central Zionist Archive, Jerusalem.
Courtesy of the Central Zionist Archive. Photographer: Zvi Oron.
Courtesy of the Aleppo Heritage Center, Tel Aviv.
Courtesy of the Ben-Zvi Institute.
Courtesy of Colonel (res.) Yigal Simon.
Courtesy of Asher Ron.
Published by
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
Workman Publishing
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2012 by Matti Friedman. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN 978-1-61620-154-8
Table of Contents
Dramatis Personae
Introduction
Part One
1 . Flushing Meadow
2 . Aleppo
3 . The Fire
4 . The Swift Scribe of Tiberias
Part Two
5 . The Treasure in the Synagogue
6 . The Jerusalem Circle
7 . The Sack of Jerusalem
8 . The Jump
9 . The President
10 . The Merchant’s Mission
11 . Maimonides
12 . Alexandretta
13 . The Brown Suitcase
Part Three
14 . The Trial
15 . A Religious Man
16 . Our Last Drop of Blood
Part Four
17 . The Book
18 . The Keepers of the Crown
19 . The Officer and the Scroll
20 . Exodus
Part Five
21 . Aspergillus
22 . Brooklyn
23 . The Fog Grows
24 . The Agent’s Ivestigation
25 . The Collector
26 . The Magicians
27 . A Deal at the Hilton
28 . Room 915
29 . Money
Part Six
30 . The Missing Pieces
31 . Silo
32 . The Institute
33 . Bahiyeh
Acknowledgments
Notes on Sources
Photo Credits