Piece of Bible Back in Israeli Museum by Barbora Kasparova

The Aleppo Codex, manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, also known as Masoteric text, or Tanakh was written around the 10th century by Aaron Ben Asher. Now it is in the Israel Museum. Most of the document has been missing since 1947, when Muslim-initiated anti Jewish riots took part resulting in destruction of a synagogue in Syria. Although some of it reappeared in 1958, approximately one third is still missing, particularly most of its beginning - Torah, considered to be one of the most important documents in Judaism. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah) A businessman Sam Sabbagh comes to the scene in 1947. At the age of 17, the day following the incident, in the synagogue he picked a scrap of paper from the ground; a scrap that proved to be over 1000 years old. Later he immigrated to the USA where he stayed and lived until his death two years ago. As soon as the Jewish Ben Zvi Institute in Jerusalem found out about the existence of the text, they've been trying to retrieve it back, however, ol' Sam Sabbagh seemed to be not only superstitious (as he would carry the piece of paper with him at all times to bring him good luck), but also stubborn, and refused to give it back. Only after his death, his family decided to donate it to the Ben Zvi Institute. The Institute officials believe there may be more cases like the one of Sabbagh and are hoping for further parts of the codex to be found and returned.

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071108/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_ancient_bible;_ylt=AhyrbzYYee_XW0f0c8gGRXSs0NUE

by Barbora Kasparova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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