Invert colors. Disable interface animations. Optimize fonts for dyslexia. To reduce font size: Press Ctrl and -. To reset font size: Press Ctrl and 0. The Aleppo Codex Tiberias. Ink on parchment. H: 32, W: 23 cm. Ben-Zvi Institute. Accession number: But documentary filmmaker Avi Dabach brings a unique perspective to this ongoing quest: He is the great-grandson of the caretaker of the great synagogue in Aleppo, Syria, where this Judaic treasure was housed for almost years before it found its way into the hands of Israeli government officials in the late s.
As part of his job as caretaker of the facility, Chacham Ezra Dabach held the key to the iron safe located in the basement of Central Synagogue of Aleppo where the bound manuscript was held. To be precise, one of the two keys.
Dabach never met his great-grandfather, who had moved from Aleppo to Jerusalem in with his family. As an adult, his interest grew into an obsession, especially as details began to emerge of its latest and most controversial handover. Not only has the mystery of the missing pages been consuming him for years, but so too has the following question: How did the Syrian Jewish community come to be stripped of its most treasured asset after guarding it for so many centuries?
The Jews of Aleppo should have remained the caretakers of this great treasure here in Israel, and therefore, a great injustice has been done to them. He is collaborating on the project, still in preproduction, with film producer Judith Manassen Ramon. During the First Crusade, the manuscript was handed over to the Jewish community of Cairo for safekeeping in exchange for a hefty ransom payment, and from there it made its way, sometime in the late 14th century, to Aleppo.
Maimonides was said to have referred to it as the most trusted version of the Hebrew Bible known to Jewish scribes. The Dead Sea Scrolls predate it by about a millenium, but the Aleppo Codex — at least until some of its pages went missing — had been the oldest complete version of the Bible known to exist in the world.
Unlike the scrolls, it also contains vowel signs, as well as cantillation marks indicating how words should be chanted. In , after the United Nations recommended establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, rioting broke out in Aleppo, and the ancient synagogue was set on fire. Sometime in the 14 th or 15 th century, the Aleppo Codex was brought to Aleppo, Syria, from which it gained its name. Scribes from around the world came to study it or sent inquiries for details to be checked.
We can piece together some of the missing parts of the Codex from surviving correspondence about it. But the Aleppo Codex was not destroyed. It had been saved from the blaze and hidden for ten years. The Codex was in bad shape. Around pages were missing, including most of the Torah. Extensive restoration was carried out in the Israel Museum laboratories for years while searches were conducted for the missing pages.
Despite best efforts, only one complete page and one fragment of a page have been recovered. In Aleppo, the Codex had been carefully guarded and few were allowed to view it. However, once restoration efforts were completed in Israel, the Aleppo Codex was made available for public view in the Israel Museum, displayed with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Study of the Aleppo Codex began again in earnest. It is considered the most authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible, though, for the missing portions, scholars are forced to turn instead to the Leningrad Codex.
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