RSS
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.”
—
The post How to pack a $38.1M Hebrew Bible for its trip from NYC to Israel? Carefully. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire
Members of the Security Council cast a vote during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the 3rd anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at UN headquarters in New York, US, Feb. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/David Dee Delgado
The U.N. Security Council met on Sunday to discuss US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East.
It was not immediately clear when it could be put to a vote. The three countries circulated the draft text, said diplomats, and asked members to share their comments by Monday evening. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.
The US is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which also condemns attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and facilities. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
“The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn in a region that is already reeling,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We now risk descending into a rathole of retaliation after retaliation.”
“We must act – immediately and decisively – to halt the fighting and return to serious, sustained negotiations on the Iran nuclear program,” Guterres said.
The world awaited Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump said the US had “obliterated” Tehran’s key nuclear sites, joining Israel in the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that while craters were visible at Iran’s enrichment site buried into a mountain at Fordow, “no one – including the IAEA – is in a position to assess the underground damage.”
Grossi said entrances to tunnels used for the storage of enriched material appear to have been hit at Iran’s sprawling Isfahan nuclear complex, while the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz has been struck again.
“Iran has informed the IAEA there has been no increase in off-site radiation levels at all three sites,” said Grossi, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran requested the U.N. Security Council meeting, calling on the 15-member body “to address this blatant and unlawful act of aggression, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Israel‘s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in a statement on Sunday that the U.S. and Israel “do not deserve any condemnation, but rather an expression of appreciation and gratitude for making the world a safer place.”
Danon told reporters before the council meeting that it was still early when it came to assessing the impact of the U.S. strikes. When asked if Israel was pursuing regime change in Iran, Danon said: “That’s for the Iranian people to decide, not for us.”
The post UN Security Council Meets on Iran as Russia, China Push for a Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from Gaza after an explosion, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo
Israel has rejected a European Union report saying it may be breaching human rights obligations in Gaza and the West Bank as a “moral and methodological failure,” according to a document seen by Reuters on Sunday.
The note, sent to EU officials ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting on Monday, said the report by the bloc’s diplomatic service failed to consider Israel’s challenges and was based on inaccurate information.
“The Foreign Ministry of the State of Israel rejects the document … and finds it to be a complete moral and methodological failure,” the note said, adding that it should be dismissed entirely.
The post Israel Rejects Critical EU Report Ahead of Ministers’ Meeting first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’
FILE PHOTO: Pope Leo XIV holds a Jubilee audience on the occasion of the Jubilee of Sport, at St. Peter’s Basilica, at the Vatican June 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
Pope Leo on Sunday said the international community must strive to avoid war that risks opening an “irreparable abyss,” and that diplomacy should take the place of conflict.
US forces struck Iran’s three main nuclear sites overnight, joining an Israeli assault in a major new escalation of conflict in the Middle East as Tehran vowed to defend itself.
“Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility: to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss,” Pope Leo said during his weekly prayer with pilgrims.
“No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, the stolen future. Let diplomacy silence the weapons, let nations chart their future with peace efforts, not with violence and bloody conflicts,” he added.
“In this dramatic scenario, which includes Israel and Palestine, the daily suffering of the population, especially in Gaza and other territories, risks being forgotten, where the need for adequate humanitarian support is becoming increasingly urgent,” Pope Leo said.
The post Pope Leo Urges International Diplomacy to Prevent ‘Irreparable Abyss’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.