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How to pack a $38.1M Hebrew Bible for its trip from NYC to Israel? Carefully.
(New York Jewish Week) – After a whirlwind trip around the globe, the Codex Sassoon, the world’s oldest nearly complete Hebrew Bible, and the most expensive book ever sold, was packed up in New York on Tuesday to head to its permanent home: ANU-Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.
“It was a fantastic day,” said Shulamith Bahat, CEO of ANU-America, who oversaw the packing and will fly to Israel with the Codex. “I’ve seen it many times, but this was the first time I had seen it since I knew it was coming to Israel. It’s just elevated to a totally new place.”
The Codex Sassoon, which originated in Syria some 1,100 years ago, became the most expensive book ever sold when it drew a record price of $38.1 million at a Sotheby’s New York auction in May. Alfred Moses, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania, bought it on behalf of American Friends of ANU as a gift to the museum.
At a farewell event at Sotheby’s Upper East Side headquarters on Tuesday afternoon, a trained Sotheby’s art handler wrapped the Bible in layers of Tyvek, a synthetic, breathable paper that’s often used in construction. He then placed it inside a specialty archival cardboard box, which was itself wrapped in more layers of Tyvek. Then, the box with the 25-pound, 800-parchment-page book inside, was carefully placed in a suitcase for its journey to the Jewish state.
“The packing was like a symbolic thing,” Bahat told the New York Jewish Week. “It was fascinating to me that so many people were interested in seeing it off. It was like sending off someone that you care very much about, that you don’t want to be apart from, but you know you’ll be able to see it and you know that they’re going to the right place.”
Sharon Liberman Mintz, the senior Judaica specialist at Sotheby’s and the consultant on the record-breaking sale, told the New York Jewish Week that saying farewell to the Codex Sasson was “a little bittersweet.”
“But it’s found such a wonderful new home and I’m really excited about it. There are millions of people who are excited on the Israel side, there is tremendous enthusiasm for this book to be available to the public at the ANU museum,” she said. “It was a total triumph for the Codex to go to such a great place.”
Representatives from ANU and Sotheby’s load the Codex into the elevator. (Julia Gergely)
Like many travelers to Israel, the Codex Sasson will travel via El Al, Israel’s national airline, “which is the appropriate company to take it,” Bahat said. “The pilot who is flying it said it’s like [the Codex] is making aliyah.”
Details about which New York-Tel Aviv flight the Codex is on, as well as where in the airplane it may be — buckled in a first-class seat? Joining other, more pedestrian luggage in the cargo hold? — are not being released for security purposes.
The book is set to arrive in Israel by Oct. 10, when an opening celebration is planned for the Codex Sasson’s permanent exhibit.
The ancient Bible was temporarily displayed at ANU in March before its purchase. Bahat said she knew it had to come back to the museum, and started working with Moses as a strategic donor to help the museum acquire it at auction.
“This is the right place for it to be — in Israel and at the Museum of the Jewish People,” she said. “This book is the crown of the Jewish story and we are telling the entire story of the Jewish people.”
Bahat added that the Codex Sasson’s journey coincides with Simchat Torah, the holiday that marks the conclusion of the reading of the Torah, which this year is on Sunday, Oct. 8. “We couldn’t do it on Simchat Torah, so we wanted to do it as close as possible, because that is the greatest joy,” she said. “So on Oct. 10, we start a new journey: We open the exhibit and it’s the first time that the public at large from everywhere in the world will be able to see this book.”
“It does something to people that is beyond, in my opinion, comprehension,” she said of the Codex. “Every Jew is connected to it and every person in the world is connected to it.”
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The post How to pack a $38.1M Hebrew Bible for its trip from NYC to Israel? Carefully. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.