Uncategorized
Codex Sassoon acquired for ANU Museum of the Jewish People for $38.1 million
(JTA) – A 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible became the most expensive book ever sold Wednesday when it drew a price of $38.1 million at auction at Sotheby’s in New York City.
The buyer of the item, known as the Codex Sassoon, was revealed to be the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. The museum said Alfred Moses, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania, and his family provided the funds for the purchase.
The manuscript is the world’s oldest nearly complete copy of the Hebrew Bible. It was handwritten roughly 1,100 years ago on 792 pages of sheepskin, includes all 24 books of the Bible and is missing only about eight pages. Its writing and layout recall those of Torah scrolls read in synagogue.
The seller, Swiss financier and collector Jacqui Safra, had owned the volume since 1989. Speculation about where the book would end up led to anxiety that it might be sold to a private collector rather than a public institution that could put it on display.
Those doubts were put to rest when the museum, formerly the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora and also known as Anu, said the book would be part of its core exhibition.
“The Hebrew Bible is the most influential book in history and constitutes the bedrock of Western civilization. I rejoice in knowing it belongs to the Jewish people,” Moses said in a statement. “It was my mission, realizing the historic significance of Codex Sassoon, to see that it resides in a place with global access to all people.”
Just a handful of buyers competed for the book — in person at Sotheby’s and by phone — and the auction took less than six minutes. Ahead of the auction, Sotheby’s estimated that the item would sell for anywhere from $30 million to $50 million. The “gavel price” was $33.5 million, but with fees and premiums, the final price tag reached $38.1 million.
Since no book or historical document quite like it has been sold at auction for decades, the Codex Sassoon has earned comparisons to other foundational texts of civilization that have also commanded tens of millions of dollars. A copy of the first printing of the U.S. Constitution’s final text sold for $43.2 million in 2021. The Codex Leicester, a journal with writings by Leonardo Da Vinci, fetched $30.8 million in 1994. And a copy of the Magna Carta sold for $21.1 million in 2007.
“This is one of the rarest, unique, uniting documents that ever existed,” Irina Nevzlin, chair of Anu’s board of directors, told JTA. “For us to have it in the museum where it will be available for all those millions of people — this is something that can strengthen our roots and our identity, because it’s something eternal.”
She added, “We are the right home for it for so many reasons. Also for the fact that we’re based in Israel.”
The in-person auction attracted a standing-room-only crowd of onlookers, many of whom said they felt compelled to witness a transaction of immense significance in Jewish tradition.
“This is a historic moment,” said Elinatan Kupferberg, a scholar and writer from Lakewood, New Jersey. “This is the oldest Torah in existence. Whoever is going to own it next is going to change history.”
Kupferberg, who said his most precious books were those containing the handwritten notes of great rabbis, said he sometimes regrets when Jewish texts are bought by collectors because they will not be used in everyday study. Not so, he said, with this item.
“It doesn’t make me feel sad to see it behind glass because it was meant to be a reference work,” he said.
Sandra Gogel, who was in town from Paris, said she had hoped the Codex Sassoon would draw a higher price, and was surprised that bidding had closed so quickly. “33.5 is nothing to scoff at, but 50 would have been nice,” she said.
Gogel said she had traveled to London to see the Codex when it was on display there and was relieved that the book will end up on public display.
“I went to London to see it because I thought I might not see it again,” she said. She added, “I’m happy it will be Israel where everyone can see it… Everyone goes to Tel Aviv.”
—
The post Codex Sassoon acquired for ANU Museum of the Jewish People for $38.1 million appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star
Tidbits is a Forverts feature of easy news briefs in Yiddish that you can listen to or read, or both! If you read the article and don’t know a word, just click on it and the translation appears. Listen to the report here:
צום ערשטן מאָל געווינט אַ כּשרער רעסטאָראַן אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“
ייִט״אַ. — ווען מע האָט באַשאָטן דעם ישׂראלדיקן קוכער רז שבתי (ראַז שאַבטײַ) מיט קאָנפֿעטי האָט ער זיך ממש צעוויינט — און זײַנע מיטאַרבעטער האָבן אים וואַרעם אַרומגענומען.
מיט עטלעכע מינוט פֿריִער האָט מען געמאָלדן, אַז זײַן רעסטאָראַן אין מיאַמי, וואָס הייסט „מוטראַ“, איז געוואָרן דער ערשטער כּשרער רעסטאָראַן צו באַקומען אַ „מישעלין־שטערן“ — דעם גרעסטן כּבֿוד אין דער רעסטאָראַן־אינדוסטריע.
„דאָס איז אַ מאָמענט פֿון שׂימחה און פֿון שטאָלץ,“ האָט שאַבטײַ געזאָגט דער ייִדישער טעלעגראַפֿישער אַגענטור. „דעם שטערן באַקומט נישט בלויז ׳מוטראַ׳, נאָר דאָס גאַנצע ייִדישע פֿאָלק.“
שבתי, וואָס האָט שוין געאַרבעט אין אַ צאָל קיכן איבער ניו־יאָרק און ישׂראל, האָט געעפֿנט „מוטראַ“ אין פֿעברואַר 2025, געבנדיק דעם רעסטאָראַן אַ נאָמען נאָך זײַן ירושלים־געבוירענער באָבען, וועמעס קאָכן האָט אינספּירירט זײַן מעניו.
„איך האָב ליב צו באַצייכענען דאָס עסן אין דעם רעסטאָראַן ווי ׳ירושלימער מאכלים׳ אַנטקעגן ׳מיטל־מיזרחדיקע אָדער ישׂראלדיקע מאכלים׳ ווײַל די טעמען וואָס איך פּרוּוו ברענגען צום טיש זענען די טעמען וואָס זענען פֿאַרבונדן מיט מײַנע זכרונות און מיט מײַנע עקסקורסיעס אין מאַרק מיט דער באָבען,” האָט שבתי געזאָגט. „איך דאַרף זײַן געטרײַ די פּאָטראַוועס וואָס די באָבע האָט מיך געהאָדעוועט.“
אַ באַשרײַבונג פֿונעם רעסטאָראַן אויף דער „מישעלין“־וועבזײַט לויבט זײַנע „פּרעכטיקע בוריקעס אין ‘אַהאָ בלאַנקאָ’ (אַ קאַלטע זופּ געמאַכט פֿון מאַנדלען, קנאָבל און עסיק)“ און „שאָפֿנפֿלייש־קאָבאַב מיט גערייכערטן פּאַטלעזשאַן־קרעם און פּאָמידאָרן־בוימל“.
אַ דאַנק דער אָנערקענונג איז „מוטראַ“ געוואָרן איינער פֿון די אָנגעזעענסטע רעסטאָראַנען און באַטרעפֿט אַן אמתן ווענדפּונקט פֿאַר דער כּשרער קיך. פֿאַר שבתי, וואָס האָט אָנגעהויבן היטן כּשרות מיט מער ווי 10 יאָר צוריק, איז די פּרעמיע אַ קלאָרער באַווײַז, אַז קולינאַרע אויסגעצייכנטקייט קען בליִען אין די ראַמען פֿון דער כּשרער קיך.
„איך האָף אַז די דערגרייכונג וועט אינספּירירן אַנדערע כּשרע קוכערס,“ האָט ער געזאָגט.
צו זען דעם אַרטיקל אויף ענגליש, גיט אַ קוועטש דאָ.
To see the article in English, click here.
The post Tidbits: For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Jewish witchcraft isn’t as weird as it sounds
Madonna, incongruously, may be largely responsible for introducing the public to a mystical, magical image of Judaism — one that went beyond old men bent over books, studying laws for keeping kosher or Shabbat. Her red string bracelet and her studies of kabbalah gave the religion a new air of mystery and occultism.
But Judaism has always been full of mystical, magical traditions. Jews made amulets to protect against the evil eye, or for luck and prosperity. They beseeched and pacified the dead. Rabbis wrote protective charms for their flock. Psychics and palm readers told the fortunes of Jews and non-Jews alike.
A new exhibit, “Jews are Magic: Occult Practices from Palmistry to Psychics” from YIVO and the Center for Jewish History, delves into the history of the occult in Ashkenazi Judaism. The display, which pulls from YIVO’s archives, has examples of occultism drawing from two Jewish communities: the shtetl and the city.
One side of the exhibit showcases letters to great rabbis asking for blessings and remedies, as well as written spells and amulets protecting against demons like Lilith. The other features photos and biographies of professional Jewish clairvoyants and fortune tellers, who worked mostly in urban areas serving both Jews and gentiles with seances, palmistry and the like, advertising in newspapers and performing on stages.
It’s a lot to cover, and it’s complicated not only by the history but by a quote from Deuteronomy, highlighted in the exhibit. It explicitly forbids those who “useth divination” as well as those who are an “enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard or a necromancer.” It is a comprehensive list, and doesn’t mince words, calling all of these magicians “an abomination.” Yet even great rabbis and Talmudists wrote charms. How could magic be so pervasive in Judaism when it is so expressly prohibited?
This is the fundamental question of the exhibit, but the show is small and has limited space to fully examine the contradictions. Its artifacts span so much time that it is difficult to intuit the connections between, say, Terfren Laila — a traveling psychic born Else Terese Frenkel who wore a ruby-adorned turban and pretended to be from Singapore by way of India (despite her Yiddish accent) — and letters asking a Talmud scholar to heal a loved one.
Thankfully, to open the exhibition, YIVO held a panel discussion between two scholars, Rokhl Kafrissen, an expert in Ashkenazi women’s folk magic, and Samuel Glauber, whose expertise is Jewish occultism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Moderated by YIVO’s Eddy Portnoy, the panelists discussed the ways that superstitions arose in shtetls and were mined by those looking to make a few shekels.
Kafrissen explained that magic was a normal part of Jewish life for centuries, largely practiced by women; their domain was the home, encompassing everything from health to wealth, including charms and remedies. And just because these women’s rituals weren’t a “normative” part of Judaism — which is to say, institutional or recorded by official religious texts — they were certainly a normal part of life. Women led rituals such as cemetery measuring, a practice in which string was used to encircle the graveyard while praying and later used to make “soul candles” for Yom Kippur, and removed the evil eye from anyone concerned they had been cursed — what Kafrissen called “everyday Ashkenazi magic.”
But over time, these rituals — long central to Ashkenazi life — were pushed out as some Jewish leaders hoped to modernize their religion. Science rose to take the place of folk magic, and people began to dismiss these practices, which were rarely written down, as mere superstition.
This sense that Judaism was full of magic, however, fed easily into Christian suspicions about Jewish witchcraft, and perhaps encouraged some of the urban psychics and spiritualists to lean on Judaism to increase their mystery.
Glauber’s research focuses on this latter, urban category, a far cry from the shtetl folk magic. These Jewish men and women took part in a craze that enraptured far more than just Jews — seances and fortune-telling were trendy throughout the Victorian era and beyond, and its Jewish performers did not only serve Jews. (Though those suspected to be Jewish were covered hungrily by the Jewish press.) They worked magic on stage and sold their services to eager consumers hoping to speak to the dead or know the future.
Some of these performers tried to hide their Judaism, like the turban-wearing Laila, who managed to become famous enough to tell the fortunes of celebrity clients in Los Angeles and London. Another was trusted by Stalin.
Others, such as Abraham Hochman, were open about their Judaism; Hochman helped the Jewish immigrant community in New York by using his supposed psychic abilities to help women who had arrived in the city find runaway husbands. (The problem was so pervasive that the Forverts had a “Gallery of Missing Husbands” column to do the same.) One branded himself a mystical rabbi, leaning into Judaism’s mystique, which led to an audience, Glauber said, made up mostly of Christian barmaids.
Much of this information discussed by Glauber and Kafrissen is not included in the exhibit, which largely consists of fragments of papers from YIVO’s archives. The end of their discussion touched briefly on yet another rich source of magic: modern Hasidism. But neither the discussion nor exhibit had space to expand on this topic, making it hard to find the throughline between demon-warding amulets and today’s Judaism.
Still, no exhibit or discussion can capture the subject in its entirety. What “Jews are Magic” does best is spark curiosity, and a desire to learn more. That, in itself, is a kind of Jewish magic.
The exhibit ‘Jews are Magic’ is on display from May 26 to Dec. 31 2026 at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the Center for Jewish History in New York City.
The post Jewish witchcraft isn’t as weird as it sounds appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Staunch Israel critic and Gaza trauma surgeon Adam Hamawy wins NJ-12 primary
(JTA) — Adam Hamawy, the staunch Israel critic who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza, is expected to join Congress after winning the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th district on Tuesday.
The political novice held a 12-point margin ahead of second-place candidate Brad Cohen with 86% of the vote in, even as he faced questions over his past ties to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” convicted on terrorism charges in 1995. Hamawy’s camp had called the questions “gross and bigoted” and said the attacks against him were “getting more desperate than ever.”
At a time when Israel is becoming increasingly unpopular among Democratic voters, Hamawy’s victory makes him the latest in a string of vocally pro-Palestinian progressives to win Democratic elections in blue districts in this year’s midterms, following fellow New Jersey candidate Analilia Mejia and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania.
“The Democratic establishment just got a wake-up call!” wrote PAL PAC, a pro-Palestinian group that had endorsed Hamawy, on X. “This victory proves what we have known all along: Standing firmly and unapologetically for Palestinian freedom is a WINNING platform.”
Hamawy, who is credited with having saved Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s life during the Iraq War, was also boosted by $2 million in spending by American Priorities, a super PAC that aims to counterweight the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC by installing pro-Palestinian progressives in Congress. He was endorsed by a slew of left-wing politicians and campaigned alongside the streamer Hasan Piker, who’s been accused of antisemitic rhetoric. He is set to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring at the end of her term.
As an opponent of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system and a supporter of a complete arms embargo and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, Hamawy will become one of Congress’ sharpest Israel critics if he wins November’s general election, which he is expected to do in the deep-blue district.
Hamawy said that he finds antisemitism “abhorrent” and that he is “deeply worried about its continued rise” in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week.
“As a Muslim, I understand what it feels like to face bigotry, to feel unsafe in your community and to have your loyalty to this country questioned,” Hamawy said. “In this country, we have seen recent attacks at both synagogues and mosques. I see our safety as intertwined.”
Asked about Jewish constituents who disagree with his stance on Israel, Hamawy told JTA, “I hope we can still connect on shared values and goals, including peace, justice, safety and dignity.” He added that his door “will always be open.”
Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, did not mention Hamawy’s pro-Palestinian advocacy in a statement congratulating him on his win.
“As a veteran, combat surgeon, and small business owner, Adam Hamawy has continually served his community and our country. He is a proven fighter for working families,” Martin said. “We look forward to welcoming him to Congress, where he will continue the fight to lower costs, expand access to healthcare, and make life more affordable for New Jersey families.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Staunch Israel critic and Gaza trauma surgeon Adam Hamawy wins NJ-12 primary appeared first on The Forward.