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The world’s oldest Hebrew Bible will be publicly displayed in NYC
(New York Jewish Week) — After stops in London, Tel Aviv and other locales, the world’s oldest nearly complete Hebrew Bible will be on view in New York City beginning on Sunday.
Known as the Codex Sassoon, the book — which was written by a single Jewish scribe on 400 pages of parchment about 1,100 years ago — will be on view at Sotheby’s auction house (1334 York Ave.) by appointment through Tuesday, May 16. The following day, it will be sold at auction and is estimated to fetch between $30 million to $50 million — possibly making it the most expensive book or document ever sold.
“Codex Sassoon has long held a revered and fabled place in the pantheon of surviving historic documents and is undeniably one of the most important and singular texts in human history,” Richard Austin, Sotheby’s global head of books and manuscripts, said. “With such eminence, the Codex has an incomparable presence and gravitas that can only be borne from more than 1,000 years of history.”
The Codex Sassoon is named after the book collector David Solomon Sassoon — a member of the influential and Jewish Sassoon dynasty — who acquired it in 1929 when it resurfaced after 600 years. Sassoon paid 350 pounds sterling, the equivalent of about $28,000 today.
Sassoon added his bookplate to the binding’s inside cover, extending a centuries-long string of inscriptions detailing the book’s Jewish ownership, much of it throughout what is present-day Syria. The record does not show what happened between when the synagogue where it had been housed was destroyed and Sassoon’s acquisition.
Codex Sassoon’s most recent owner is Jacqui Safra, part of the storied Jewish banking family, who paid for carbon dating that put its age at about 1,100 years old. Only the Dead Sea Scrolls and some early medieval fragmentary texts are older, Yosef Ofer, a professor of Bible studies at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, told the Associated Press.
The book was briefly displayed at the British Museum in 1982; its viewing at Sotheby’s New York is a rare opportunity for the public to see the ancient book in person.
Codex Sassoon, according to a Sotheby’s press release, provides “critical insight into the development and spread of Abrahamic religions as well as the broader transition from oral to literary traditions, its centuries of annotations and inscriptions bear witness to the history of the Levant in the Middle Ages.” It contains all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible and is missing only 12 leaves. (The earliest entirely complete Hebrew Bible is the Leningrad Codex, which dates to about 1008 CE, a century after the Codex Sassoon.)
“In Codex Sassoon, a monumental transformation in the history of the Hebrew Bible is revealed,” said Sharon Mintz, Sotheby’s senior Judaica specialist for books and manuscripts. “The biblical text in book format marks a critical turning point in how we perceive the history of the Divine word across thousands of years and is a transformative witness to how the Hebrew Bible has influenced the pillars of civilization — art, culture, law, politics — for centuries.”
Sotheby’s New York galleries are free and open to the public; to book an appointment to view Codex Sassoon click here.
— with additional reporting by Jackie Hajdenburg
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The post The world’s oldest Hebrew Bible will be publicly displayed in NYC appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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How an ‘unlikely rabbi’ went from Korea to Colbert
Calling herself an “unlikely rabbi,” Angela Buchdahl has been a staple on numerous lists of notable American Jews, including the Forward 50. Born in South Korea in 1972 and raised by a Korean Buddhist mother and an Ashkenazi Jewish father in Tacoma, Washington, she went on to become the first Asian American ordained as a rabbi and first as a cantor. Today, she leads Central Synagogue in New York City, one of the largest and most influential congregations in the country.
Her new memoir, Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging, traces that journey, from the embracing Jewish community she grew up in to finding herself the answer to a Jeopardy question (“What is rabbi?”) — and, even more bizarrely, picking up the phone one day to hear a hostage-taking gunman make demands of her as the “chief rabbi of the United States.” In advance of the book’s release and a launch event hosted by Stephen Colbert, I spoke with her about claiming her place in Jewish life and the responsibility of Jews to always think of the stranger as themselves.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How did you nab Stephen Colbert for your book launch event — or did he nab you?
His son and my son were college roommates, and I got to know him and his wife, Evie. I learned quickly that this was not only a very funny man and a very good interviewer, but someone who was deeply faithful. He teaches in his church and thinks a lot about faith. I’m very grateful that he said yes.
Your title is Heart of a Stranger. I want to challenge you on that: Haven’t you and I worked for years on representing Jews of color as normative? Are you still feeling like a stranger?
I guess I would argue that you never fully let it go. It’s like someone who says they were chubby as a kid. They’re not chubby anymore, but there’s some way in which they always see themselves as the chubby kid. You carry certain formative identity markers from childhood into your adulthood.
Heart of a Stranger is not an original title. I took it from Torah, which says, “Do not oppress the stranger. You know the heart of a stranger. You were strangers in Egypt.” This is the existential state that Jews are supposed to understand and know. The danger is when we get too comfortable, too powerful, too complacent.
Along those lines, you write about undergoing a conversion, even though your family was Reform, which by the time you were growing up had recognized patrilineal descent. That brought to mind Julius Lester’s conversion, which actually was something of a reversion because his great-grandfather was a German Jew. Lester said that he wasn’t converting to be accepted; he was converting for himself, saying, “I would do it even if no Jew ever accepted me.”
I had a very similar experience. I rejected the idea of converting when it was first suggested to me at age 16. Growing up in Tacoma in a Reform synagogue in my little Jewish bubble, I was accepted without a lot of questions. But I had a lot of existential identity questions: “Was I Jewish enough? Was I authentic enough? Was I learned enough?” And some of the answers were not yes.
I termed it a reaffirmation ceremony rather than conversion, because conversion sounds like turning into something that you weren’t before. I recognized that with a Beit Din of three Reform rabbis, it wasn’t going to change my status one whit for an Orthodox Jew. But it wasn’t for them. It was really a way to ritually mark the journey that I had been on and the acceptance of my identity in a way that felt important to me.
One reason I live in Duluth is I’ve called our little Temple Israel here the warmest shul that I’ve ever found in one of the coldest places on earth. Do you find it true that smaller Jewish communities are more embracing than large ones?
I grew up in a small community that was incredibly embracing of my family, including my mother, and that made a huge difference. I now work at a very large synagogue. I think the big difference is when you’re in a community where not everybody knows each other and they’re encountering people who are strangers. That’s when the inevitable questions come up.
It was disappointing for me after many years of being the senior rabbi of Central to hear from Jews of color who said Central wasn’t as welcoming of them as I thought. It hadn’t solved every problem just by having me as the senior rabbi. That was a painful realization that started a conversation that has shifted the culture at Central.
You write about the synagogue takeover in Colleyville, Texas, in 2022. The perpetrator who held the rabbi and congregants hostage called you while it was going on. He seemed to think that you were the “chief rabbi of the United States.” On the one hand, you’re balancing this misperception of your influence and power. On the other, this was a real situation of life and death.
That was one of the most surreal and destabilizing experiences I’ve ever had as a rabbi. They don’t train you for hostage negotiation in rabbinical school.
This terrorist clearly had done a lot of research. He researched the synagogue, which was the closest synagogue to the federal prison from which he wanted a prisoner released. The FBI went through his computer and saw that he was searching for what he thought was the equivalent of a chief rabbi because he was from England, where there is a chief rabbi. Of course, that doesn’t exist in America. He also mentioned that he saw pictures of me with President Obama at the White House. I think given Central’s name, and the fact that I had been the answer to a Jeopardy question not long before, may have put me higher up on the search algorithm.
It was terrifying because I felt that he very explicitly put the lives of these four people on me. And yet, I felt powerless to do anything. This is a case where I realized the danger of the antisemitic trope that he had imbibed since childhood, that Jews control the government and can make a few phone calls and get anything done. When I said to him, “I don’t think I have as much power as you think I do,” he was like, “Of course you do.” So, yeah, it was a terrifying day. I continue to give thanks that the four who were being held hostage survived.
Another weird note is that he seemed to think it normative that a Jew of color would be the chief rabbi of the United States. Does this mean our efforts for a more inclusive representation of Judaism are paying off?
It is funny because when I was named senior rabbi of Central, there was an Orthodox publication that had a headline like, “It’s official: Non-Jews can be rabbis” — literally calling me a non-Jew. And here was this deranged gunman who seemed to think I was the chief rabbi. I can laugh about it in some ways now that it’s over, but it is ironic.
The post How an ‘unlikely rabbi’ went from Korea to Colbert appeared first on The Forward.
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A love affair between two Yiddish poets in New York City
ראַשעל װעפּרינסקיס ראָמאַן „דאָס קרײצן פֿון די הענט“ איז אַ יוצא־דופֿן אין דער אַמעריקאַנער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור.
דאָס בוך איז אַרױס אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ אין 1971, אָבער די האַנדלונג קומט פֿאָר אין 1918. דאָס איז אַ דראַמאַטישע ליבע־געשיכטע צװישן אַ דיכטער, וואָס הייסט ניעזשינער און אַ יונגער דיכטערין, מרים. בײדע זײַנען חתונה־געהאַטע מיט קינדער: ער האָט פֿינף, זי האָט אײנס. די שטורעמדיקע ליבע צעשטערט דעם שלום־בית אין ביידעהײמען. זײ פֿאַרלאָזן זײערע משפּחות און װאַנדערן איבער די גאַסן, קאַפֿע־הײַזער און געדונגענע צימערן אין דער גרױסער שטאָט ניו־יאָרק.
װען דאָס בוך איז אַרױס אױף ייִדיש, האָבן נאָך געלעבט לײענערס, װאָס האָבן געדענקט די בלי־תּקופֿה פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור אין ניו־יאָרק און דערקענט די פּראָטאָטיפּן פֿון די פּערסאָנאַזשן: ניעזשינער איז דער דיכטער מאַני לײב בראַהינסקי (1883־1953) — ער שטאַמט פֿון דער שטאָט ניעזשין אין מזרח־אוקראַיִנע — און מרים איז די מחברטע, ראַשעל װעפּרינסקי (1896־1981). צװײ אַנדערע װיכטיקע פּערסאָנאַזשן האָבן אױך רעאַלע פּראָטאָטיפּן: ניעזשינערס חבֿר יעקבֿ שאָר איז דער דיכטער ראובֿן אײַזלאַנד (1884־1955) און זײַן קאָכאַנקע אַדאַ איז די דיכטערין אַנאַ מאַרגאָלין (ראָזע לעבענסבױם, 1887־1952).
צו דער צײַט פֿון דער פּובליקאַציע פֿונעם ראָמאַן זײַנען די דאָזיקע פּראָטאָטיפּן — חוץ װעפּרינסקין — שױן געװען אױף יענער װעלט. זײ האָבן ניט געקענט האָבן קײן טענות צו דער מחברטע. אַ סבֿרא, ניט אַלע פֿון זײ װאָלטן געװען צופֿרידן מיט זײערע ליטעראַרישע פּאָרטרעטן, בפֿרט אַנאַ מאַרגאָלין. אָט, למשל, װי װעפּרינסקי באַשרײַבט די באַציִונגען פֿון אַדאַ צו שאָרן: „אַדאַ האָט אים אױסגעקליבן בלױז דעמאָלט, װען זי האָט שױן נישט געהאַט קײן אױסקוק אױף עפּעס בעסערס. דערבײַ מאָנט זי כּסדר בײַ אים געטרײַשאַפֿט. אַלײן קאָכט זי צומאָל נישט אָפּ אַ לעפֿל געקעכץ, שטענדיק נאַשט זי זיסקײטן און װערט דיקער פֿון טאָג צו טאָג. אין שטוב איז אָנגעװאָרפֿן, ס’איז דאָ אַן אמתער הקדש.“ עס איז קלאָר, אַז קײן שטאַרקע ליבע צװישן װעפּרינסקי און מאַרגאָלין איז ניט געװען.
הײַיאָר איז װעפּרינסקיס ראָמאַן אַרױס אױף ענגליש אין דער איבערזעצונג פֿון חנה נאָריך און עלען קעסעדי. זײ דערקלערן אין דער הקדמה, אַז די פּערסאָנאַזשן פֿונעם ראָמאַן געהערן צו דער באָהעמישער ליטעראַרישער סבֿיבֿה אַרום דער ליטעראַרישער גרופּע „די יונגע“, װאָס איז געװען פּראָמינענט אין די ערשטע פּאָר צענדליק יאָר פֿונעם צװאַנציקסטן יאָרהונדערט.
אײַזלאַנד שרײַבט אין זײַנע זכרונות „פֿון אונדזער פֿרילינג“, אַז „דער נאָמען ׳יונגע׳ איז אורשפּרענגלעך געװען אַ שפּאָט־נאָמען פֿאַר אַ גרופּע יונגע שרײַבער, װאָס האָט נאָך אין 1907 געהאַט די ׳חוצפּה׳ צו דערקלערן, אַז מען דאַרף דאָס ביסל ייִדישע ליטעראַרישע כּוחות אין אַמעריקע באַפֿרײַען פֿון דער אַפּוטרופּסות פֿון די צײַטונגען, און זײ האָבן געזוכט צו שאַפֿן אַן אײגענעם ליטעראַרישן װינקל אין די דינע העפֿטלעך פֿון דעם חודש־זשורנאַל ׳די יוגנט׳.“ ביז הײַנט פֿאַרבלײַבן װעפּרינסקיס ראָמאַן און אײַזלאַנדס זכרונות די װיכטיקסטע מקורים װעגן דער ליטעראַרישער סבֿיבֿה פֿון יענער תּקופֿה.
„די יונגע“ האָבן געהאַט פֿעסטע עסטעטישע השׂגות װעגן דיכטונג. אײַזמאַן שרײַבט: „די דיכטונג דאַרף ניט לעבן אין זכות פֿון װעלכער ניט איז אידײ, װײַל זי לעבט אין איר אײגענעם זכות.“ ניעזשינער און מרים, פּונקט װי דאָס רובֿ ייִדישע ליטעראַטן פֿון יענער צײַט, זײַנען געװען אַרבעטער, אָבער דיכטונג איז בײַ זײ געװען װיכטיקער אײדער פּרנסה. נאָך אַ שװערן אַרבעט־טאָג אין אַ שאַפּ אָדער אַ פֿאַבריק האָבן זײ פֿאַרבראַכט אָװנטן מיט חבֿרים ליטעראַן און אַקטיאָרן אין קאַפֿע־הײַזער אױף דעם איסט־סײַד.
װעפּרינסקי באַשרײַבט די דאָזיקע אָװנטן אין דער הקדמה צו מאַני לײבס בריװ, װאָס זי האָט אַרױסגעגעבן אין 1980: „מאַני לײב פֿלעגט זיך אײַלן פֿון דער אַרבעט אין שלומס קאַפֿע און ס׳האָבן שױן דאָרט געװאַרט אױף אים זײַנע חבֿרים, כּדי צוזאַמען זאָלן זײ אױסאַרבעטן זײערע ליטעראַרישע פּלענער און פּראָיעקטן, אַרױסהעלפֿן חבֿרים פּאָעטן אַרױסגעבן זײערע װערק און טאַקע אױך הערן װעגן די לעצטע לידער זײַנע, װאָס זײַנען דערשינען זונטיק אין ‘פֿאָרװערטס’ און אין אַנדערער צײַטשריפֿטן. אױך איך פֿלעג קומען אַהין און מיר פֿלעגן זיך דאָרט טרעפֿן.”
מען האָט אױך געפֿירט לינקע ליבעס, צומאָל מיט מער װי אײן פֿרױ אָדער מאַן אײנצײַטיק. אַזאַ פֿירונג איז געװען אַ מין פּראָטעסט פֿונעם יונגן דור אימיגראַנטן קעגן דער אַלטמאָדישער ייִדישקײט פֿון זײערע עלטערן. די שטאָט ניו־יאָרק האָט טאַקע געשאַפֿן נײַע מעגלעכקײטן פֿאַר פֿרײַע באַציִונגען צװישן מענער און פֿרױען. די בריקן צװישן ברוקלין און מאַנהעטן, שמאָלע גאַסן און ברײטע עװעניוס, רעסטאָראַנען און פּריװאַטע דירות, װי אױך די װאַקאַציע־האָטעלן, פֿערמעס און װעלדער אין די קעטסקיל־בערג שפּילן אַ װיכטיקע ראָלע אין דער אַנטװיקלונג פֿונעם סיפּור־המעשׂה פֿונעם ראָמאַן.
די איבערזעצערינס באַמערקן אין דער הקדמה׃ „כאָטש דער ראָמאַן איז פֿאַרעפֿנטעלעכט געװאָרן אין ייִדיש העכער װי פֿופֿציק יאָר נאָך די באַשריבענע געשעענישן, לײענט ער זיך כּאילו ער איז אָנגעשריבן געװאָרן בשעת די האַנדלונג איז פֿאָרגעקומען.“ װעפּרינסקיס זכּרון האָט אָפּגעהיט ניט נאָר די פּרטים פֿונעם אַמאָליקן באָהעמישן שטײגער נאָר אױך דעם גײַסט פֿון יענער תּקופֿה, װען „די יונגע“ זײַנען טאַקע געװען יונג און פֿול מיט שעפֿערישע כּוחות.
אײַזלאַנד האַלט, אַז דער ערשטער, ראָמאַנטישער פּעריאָד אין מאַני לײבס דיכטונג, איז געקומען צום סוף, דװקא אַרום דער צײַט פֿון זײַן באַגעגעניש מיט ראַשעל. באַלד נאָך דעם האָט זיך אָנגעהױבן די צװײטע תּקופֿה: „די הױפּט־כאַראַקטעריסטיק פֿון מאַני לײבס ערשטער דיכטערישער תּקופֿה איז נעפּל. אַלץ איז אין איר פֿאַרנעפּלט. די שטימונג איז פֿאַרנעפּלט, די איבערלעבונג פֿון װעלכער זי װאַקסט אַרױס איז פֿאַרנעפּלט. […] די סיבה פֿון דער דאָזיקער פֿאַרנעפּלטקײט האָט זיך, לױט מײַן מײנונג, גענומען הױפּטזעכלעך פֿון דעם, װאָס ער אַלײן האָט […] מורא געהאַט צו דערגרונטעװען זיך צו זײַנע עמאָציעס. די הױפּט־כאַראַקטעריסטיק פֿון זײַן צװײטן פּעריאָד איז זוניקײט און קלאָרקײט.“
עס איז אַװדאי ניט מער װי אַ השערה, אַז די דראַמאַטישע און שטורעמדיקע ליבע־אַפֿערע מיט ראַשעל האָט געגעבן אַ שטױס פֿאַרן אַרױסברענגען מאַני לײבס דיכטונג פֿון נעפּל צו קלאָרקײט. אָבער עס איז ניטאָ קײן ספֿק, אַז די דאָזיקע שטאַרקע איבערלעבונגען האָבן איבערגעלאָזט אַ טיפֿן רושם אױף בײדע נשמות זײערע. װעפּרינסקי האָט אָפּגעהיט דעם דאָזיקן רושם איר גאַנץ לעבן און האָט געפֿונען פֿאַר אים אַ פֿרישן קינסטלערישן אױסדרוק אין איר ראָמאַן.
דער בעסטער אופֿן אָפּצושאַצן די שײנקײט און פֿרישקײט פֿונעם ראָמאַן איז צו לײענען אים אין אײנעם מיט מאַני לײבס לידער. און די הײַנטיקע צײַט איז אַן עת־רצון פֿאַר װענדן זיך צו דער ירושה פֿון דער אַמעריקאַנער ייִדיש־ליטעראַטור, װען אָרעמע ייִדישע אַרבעטער האָבן באַזונגען אין זײערע לידער פֿרײַהײט, ליבע און שײנקײט פֿון דער װעלט — אױף צו להכעיס די ביטערע אומשטאַנדן פֿון זײער טאָגטעגלעכן לעבן.
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After describing deal on ’60 Minutes,’ Witkoff and Kushner head to Israel as truce teeters
Two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza on Sunday and Israel conducted strikes against targets inside the territory in the biggest threats yet to the week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
The soldiers were not killed by Hamas, the group and Israel both said. The deaths come as Hamas is continuing to locate and release the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, as required by the terms of the ceasefire deal, and as U.S. officials head to the region in an attempt to preserve the deal brokered by President Donald Trump.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who closed the deal, arrived on Monday and Vice President J.D. Vance is set to land on Tuesday. Witkoff and Kushner arrived after offering details about how the deal came to pass during an appearance on “60 Minutes” that was reportedly brokered in part by Bari Weiss, the Jewish journalist who now helms CBS News.
Witkoff described how Israel’s Sept. 9 strike on Hamas targets in Qatar, which was unsuccessful, came to represent a turning point in U.S.-led efforts to end the war.
“I think both Jared and I felt — I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed,” Witkoff said. About Trump’s reaction to the strike, he said, “I think he felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control in what they were doing, and that it was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long-term interests.”
Kushner, who also proposed an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan during Trump’s first term, described his reaction to viewing the devastation in Gaza, where he visited after the ceasefire took effect and saw Palestinians returning to their destroyed homes. “It’s very sad, because you think to yourself, they really have nowhere else to go,” he said.
Kushner rebuffed a question about whether his business interests in the region interfered with his role in peace talks. And both he and Witkoff rejected the idea that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, from which Hamas launched the two-year war with a brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Kushner and Witkoff drew cheers last week in Hostage Square where they addressed crowds following the release of the final 20 living hostages from Gaza.
Three deceased hostages were released over the weekend, and the remains of another hostage is expected to be transferred to Israel on Monday night.
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The post After describing deal on ’60 Minutes,’ Witkoff and Kushner head to Israel as truce teeters appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.