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Alfred Moses bought the Codex Sassoon for more than $30 million. He just saw it for the first time.
(JTA) — On Wednesday morning, Alfred Moses, 94, sat in a small white armchair at a round wooden table in a Manhattan office building as a historian gingerly turned the pages of a more than 1,000-year-old book in front of him.
Two weeks earlier, Moses had paid a record-setting sum for the book — more than $38 million in total. But this was the first time he had ever seen it.
The book was the Codex Sassoon, the world’s oldest nearly-complete copy of the Hebrew Bible. That morning, in Sotheby’s Upper East Side office, Sharon Mintz, the auction house’s senior Judaica specialist, was giving Moses and some of his relatives a history lesson on his new acquisition.
Mintz turned the pages with clean, bare hands, noting the scored ruling between the lines of text and the thickness of the parchment pages — made somewhat thinner in places where scribes scratched over each others’ notes. Before Moses bought the book at a much-anticipated Sotheby’s auction on May 17, the codex passed between multiple owners — most recently through the hands of Jacqui Safra, a member of the prominent banking family, and before him, in the 1920s, Jewish book collector David Solomon Sassoon.
It will now be housed at the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, which exhibited the codex earlier this year.
“It’s an inspiring book, to see a 1,200 year old manuscript in perfect [condition] — even that we can read today — it’s quite amazing,” Moses said. “It has the vowels and the trope … it’s remarkable. It’s something that’s been preserved for 1,200 years. And we’re the beneficiaries of it.”
Moses is an attorney who served as U.S. ambassador to Romania during the Clinton administration and is a past president of the American Jewish Committee. He had anxiously watched the auction online from his home in Washington, D.C., worried that another possible bidder, like the Bible Museum, also in Washington, might put in a competitive bid. Representatives from the American Friends of ANU, which supports the museum, were concerned it might wind up in a private collection, and could be lost to public view for another generation.
“I thought my chances were about 50/50,” Moses said. “But I was prepared to buy it if I could afford to.”
He expected to pay as much as $32.5 million, which he put in as an “irrevocable bid” with Sotheby’s ahead of the auction, according to Bloomberg. He ended up inching his bid up to $33.5 million after someone else bid $33 million. Fees brought his final tab to $38.1 million.
Part of the reason he decided to give the book to ANU — an institution he has supported for years, including as chair of its honorary board — is that he sees it as serving Jews worldwide. He feels other prestigious homes for historical artifacts in the country, such as the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, are meant to cater to Israelis specifically.
“It’s the museum of the Jewish people and I wanted the codex to go to the Jewish people,” he said. “The Israel Museum is wonderful. But that’s the museum for Israel. I wanted the codex to be for the Jewish people.”
Alfred Moses (center, seated) examines the Codex Sassoon surrounded by family and friends. (Perry Bindelglass for The American Friends of ANU The Museum of the Jewish People)
Moses is making the hefty donation to Israel at a fraught time, as street protests across the country are raging at the government’s attempt to weaken the judiciary, and as friction persists between the Biden administration and Israel’s right-wing government. But Moses sees the tension as a passing phase.
“I think there’s a bit of concern among American Jews as to what is happening politically in Israel, but that’s temporal. 20 years from now, it’ll seem like history,” Moses said. “One has to have a sense of history in the longer viewpoint. Israel is the home of the Jewish people. Whom the Israelis elect to be their government and the prime minister is an Israeli decision.”
But Moses mused that the book could leave Israel after all. During the lesson, Mintz explained that part of the mystery of the book’s provenance is its disappearance from the medieval town of Makisin, in present-day Markada, Syria, sometime around the year 1400. According to an inscription on the book’s last page, it was removed from the synagogue during an attack on the town and entrusted to the care of Salama ibn Abi al-Fakhr, who was instructed to return it as soon as Makisin was rebuilt.
It was during this part of the lesson that Moses cracked a joke: if the Jewish community returns to what is now Markada, would he have to return the book?
Given the condition of Syria after more than a decade of fighting, and the almost total loss of its once thriving Jewish community, that prospect seems remote. Mintz also noted that while the existence of the codex in what is present-day Markada has been established, little else is known about the Jewish community that existed there. For now, Moses hopes that the cultural treasure he bought will be seen as the property of Jews everywhere.
“I think the Sassoon Codex will give satisfaction, joy, and pride to tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of viewers,” Moses added. “I see benefit to the Jewish people.”
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The post Alfred Moses bought the Codex Sassoon for more than $30 million. He just saw it for the first time. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Mamdani to attend Passover Seder as he navigates ties with Jewish groups amid rising antisemitism
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to attend a Passover Seder on Monday night at the City Winery in Manhattan, stepping into a decades-old cultural tradition that doubles as a symbolic test of his relationship with the city’s Jewish community.
Mamdani is slated to appear alongside a liberal rabbi, an Israeli musician and an observant comedian at the annual Downtown Seder hosted by nightlife impresario and entrepreneur Michael Dorf. All net proceeds from the event will be donated to Seeds of Peace, a New York-based nonprofit founded in 1993 that helps young people from conflict regions build leadership skills and engage in dialogue.
Founded in 1991 and held at the East Village’s Knitting Factory and later at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Downtown Seder brings together artists, activists and public figures for a contemporary retelling of the Exodus story. Dorf, who is Jewish and launched City Winery in 2008, has described the gathering as a “supplement” to traditional seders. Passover begins Wednesday evening at sundown.
“The Seder is about asking urgent questions — about freedom, responsibility, and how we care for one another,” Dorf said in a statement. “Each year, we bring together voices who challenge, inspire, and reflect the world as it is — and as it could be.”
Featured guests this year include former CNN anchor Don Lemon, Israeli musician David Broza, and comedian Modi Rosenfeld. Former Mayor Eric Adams was the featured guest at the Seder in 2023.
A City Hall spokesperson said Mamdani will also host a private Passover dinner with city workers.
Mamdani’s participation at the Seder on Monday comes at a delicate political moment. A vocal critic of Israel who supports the boycott movement and has declined to recognize Israel specifically as a Jewish state, Mamdani has faced backlash from Zionist Jewish organizations, particularly after revoking executive orders tied to antisemitism and campus protests on his first day in office and his recent refusal to back legislation aimed at curbing disruptive protests outside synagogues and schools.
Reflecting his outreach efforts since taking office, his appearance at the Seder signals an ongoing effort to engage Jewish audiences drawn to themes of justice and coexistence and who are willing to be part of the conversation.
The event that Mamdani will speak at will also feature remarks from Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, a rabbi and human rights activist, who will appear via video from Israel, according to the organizers.
Last week, Mamdani helped load cars with Passover food for Orthodox families at the annual Chasdei Lev distribution event in Brooklyn. He also met with Orthodox businessman Dov Bleich at his office, who showed him a Haggadah dating to the Civil War era in New York.
In his interview with the Forward last April, Mamdani framed the Exodus story as a call for collective liberation struggles. He invoked the biblical story of Moses confronting Pharaoh as a metaphor for present political challenges. “This moment with so many Pharaohs around us — whether they be Donald Trump, ICE or this troubling rise of antisemitism — we must take a lesson from those words of the necessity of not only having our lips not tremble or falter, but that the power in doing this comes in a shared belief in the possible,” Mamdani said. As a candidate, Mamdani attended a Seder hosted by Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.
Jewish politicians mark Passover amid rising antisemitism
Other politicians have also sought to mark Passover in ways that resonate with Jews grappling with rising antisemitism.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin co-hosted an interfaith Seder with the Jewish Community Relations Council on Thursday at Tsion Cafe, an Ethiopian Jewish restaurant in Harlem that closed earlier this year, after the owner faced ongoing harassment and vandalism since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. “The story of Passover is a story of hope, perseverance, grit and determination for the Jewish community,” Menin said in her remarks. She added that it is symbolic that this year all the major religious holidays — Ramadan, Lent, Easter and Passover — have converged around the same time. “This is what our city needs more of — focused on unity and inclusion,” she said.
Some see Menin’s role as the Council’s first Jewish speaker as a counterweight to Mamdani on Jewish communal issues. On Thursday, the Council passed two bills that direct the NYPD to craft a plan within 45 days for managing protests around houses of worship and schools.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker hosted a Seder with Jewish leaders last week at his official residence. Last year, Pritzker, among a handful of Jewish politicians in leadership roles offering the Democratic Party a path forward ahead of the midterm elections, invoked his family’s history and his role in building the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center to criticize President Donald Trump’s policies, comparing them to authoritarian tactics.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is set to hold a family Seder at his official residence and will mark the first anniversary of the arson attack on the first night of Passover last year by an intruder, who said he wanted to beat the governor with a sledgehammer over what he claimed was a lack of empathy toward Palestinians. Shapiro has since leaned into his Jewish identity and has spoken out on bipartisan platforms about rising hate-fueled violence.
The post Mamdani to attend Passover Seder as he navigates ties with Jewish groups amid rising antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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IDF Soldier from Connecticut Killed in Southern Lebanon Combat
Sgt. Moshe Yitzhak Hacohen Katz. Photo: courtesy.
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday morning the death of Sgt. Moshe Yitzhak Hacohen Katz, 22, originally from New Haven, Connecticut, who was killed during combat operations in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
According to the military, Katz was killed in a rocket attack targeting Israeli forces operating during efforts to expand a security zone in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the strike occurred overnight between Friday and Saturday, during a large-scale barrage aimed at units deployed in the area.
An initial military investigation found that one rocket directly hit an infantry unit from the 890th Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade, killing Katz instantly. Three additional soldiers were wounded and are listed in moderate condition.
The IDF said the announcement of Katz’s death was delayed to ensure that all family members, including those in the United States, were properly notified.
The army also said that recent attacks have largely focused on the four IDF divisions operating in Lebanon. In the past 24 hours alone, approximately 250 rockets were launched toward Israeli positions, with 23 crossing into Israeli territory, according to military figures.
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AI-Generated Antisemitic Rabbi Racks Up Millions of Followers with Questionable Financial Advice
i24 News – An AI-generated character known as Rabbi Goldman has attracted millions of followers online by combining old antisemitic tropes with digital-age conspiracy theories. The avatar, presented as a caricature of a New York rabbi, plays off stereotypes of Jewish power and wealth while dispensing unsolicited “financial advice” and conspiracy-laden commentary about global elites.
In his videos, Rabbi Goldman claims that Jews have “known every secret for thousands of years,” weaving age-old prejudice into modern misinformation. Among his assertions: that the moon landing was faked, the US government will soon exert total control over its citizens, and billionaires stage yacht sinkings for insurance fraud—all allegedly foreknown by “the Jews.”
Before being removed on Sunday night, his Instagram account had racked up over 1.5 million followers. Yet the same page remains active on Facebook, which shares an owner with Instagram, with roughly 180,000 followers and thousands of interactions per post. The comments reveal an audience that is genuinely engaged with, and emboldened by, his vitriolic rhetoric.
Rabbi Goldman’s videos follow a simple formula designed to thrive in algorithm-driven ecosystems. They begin with a cryptic slogan implying secret knowledge or hidden wealth — invoking Jews as the keepers of these secrets — to draw viewers in and extend watch time, thus being featured on more people’s feeds. What follows is a cascade of AI-generated, factually dubious monologues, all culminating in a pitch: he can show you how to acquire the same “Jewish wisdom.”
That pitch leads to his website, where a manual titled How to Make and Invest Money sells for $9, and he claims it has been purchased by over 4,000 people. The real product, however, carries a fuller title — How to Make and Invest Money Like the Jews. The 62-page PDF amounts to generic, AI-spun financial advice labeled as “the Jewish method,” occasionally interspersed with random references to the Talmud. Just like the videos, it references how Jews have managed to be successful for thousands of years but offers little backup as to how that can translate to a real-world scenario.
Most of it plays off the stereotype of Jews being financially astute. But some lines, such as “Jews do not day trade… We buy the market — the entire market — and we hold it indefinitely,” remove the mask entirely.
Whether we like it or not, antisemitism thrives online—and platforms’ recent loosening of content restrictions under the banner of “free speech” has only amplified it. Social media has become an ideal environment for grifters to blend prejudice with profit. And that is, to their credit, what the creators of Rabbi Goldman have done.
They have clearly borrowed from the “manosphere” playbook—a cluster of influencers promoting hyper-masculine, materialistic lifestyles infused with misogyny and antisemitism. Like Andrew Tate and similar figures, Rabbi Goldman appeals to disaffected young men who feel alienated by the economy and society in which they live, eager to locate a scapegoat.
In Goldman’s case, the scapegoats are the elites and billionaires. But the framing of the Jews alongside the elites has, by proxy, made them the scapegoat too. By merging coded hatred with generic Instagram-style self-help language, the character transforms antisemitism into a marketable aesthetic.
So essentially, the creator of Rabbi Goldman has found a niche in an emerging market, playing off of antisemitism to sell cheaply produced slop to teenagers. Which is both entrepreneurial and morally awful. But the issue is that social media has bred the ground for this by rewarding shock content and letting antisemitism often go untouched. Even when they deleted his Instagram account, dozens of copycats popped up, including an absurdly ironic German-language version that uses the likeness of British politician Jeremy Corbyn.
And this is what happens when social media companies are reactive rather than proactive. They were chasing shadows after the account became so big. Instead, they need to cut it out at its source, be tougher on antisemitism, and be more vigilant with AI content.
And for social media users, it is hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t anymore. Just try not to get financial advice from an AI rabbi who thinks the moon landing was fake.