In the coming days, under heavy security, an El Al flight from New York will board Codex Sasson, the oldest Bible in the world, purchased at auction in May for $38.1 million.
The book was exhibited in March at the ANU Museum, and it was Alfred Moses, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania, who lives in Washington and is considered one of the museum's largest donors, who decided to finance the purchase of the most expensive book ever.
For the first time in 60 years: A rare scroll with passages from the Bible was found in the caves of the Judean Desert // Photo: Yoni Rikner
Since it was held primarily in a private collection, the existence of the book was known to only a few until the beginning of this year. When businessman Jacqui Safra, who owned it, wanted to sell it, Sotheby's showed interest in the item and exhibited it at several stations around the world.
The book will land at Ben Gurion Airport and be transferred to ANU – Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv. There, after years of wandering, he will finally have a permanent home and the respect he deserves.
"This is our Mona Lisa," said Irina Nevzlin, the museum's chairman, who received the expensive book yesterday at Sotheby's auction house in New York. "It was important for us to get him both to be displayed in the museum and to come to Israel. It would have been a disaster if he had stayed out of the house. The book is proof not only that we have preserved ourselves as a people, but that we have developed and established a prosperous state. It shows how our story doesn't end, it just began."
A journey through the generations
The ancient book has endured many hardships since it was written on cultivated sheepskin somewhere in Syria, near the end of the 9th century. It survived under the hands of the Mongol conqueror, disappeared for 600 years, landed in London, lived in Geneva, Switzerland, and in fact could still be in the family bookcase of David Sliman Sasson, the greatest collector of Jewish manuscripts, after whom it is also named. But when the collector died in 1942, his descendants wanted to realize his value and sent it to markets in the 70s.
Jason Greenblatt - representative of El Al owners, Rafi Tal - the pilot who will fly the book and Irina Nevzlin,
The book was carefully packaged yesterday at the auction house, attended by, among others, Israel's Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan; Ahmed Al Mansoori, founder of the Meeting of Civilizations Museum in Dubai; and Jason Greenblatt, El Al's owner's representative.
Ambassador Erdan said: "The Sasson Codex is the best proof to the world that we are neither occupiers nor colonialists - we belong to the land of Israel. This book will protect our roots even more." Al Mansoori, who will soon arrive in Israel, added: "Politics sometimes divides us, and the sources are what unite us."
Codex Sassoon will stay on the plane in a special box prepared in his honor and will spend part of the time in the cockpit. El Al pilot Rafi Tal, who will fly the plane, said. "I've flown valuable ones in the past, they said there were diamonds in the trunk, but things like that have no emotion. Here you feel a sense of belonging, it's part of us."
Codex Sasson will be displayed in the coming weeks at the ANU Museum. "His condition is amazing, certainly compared to the long journey he has undergone," says Dr. Orit Shaham-Guber, the museum's chief curator. "There is a sense of closure because the book has emerged from the heart of Jewish culture, reincarnated and is now returning to a place that will make it an asset to the Jewish people. It will no longer be a collector's item in a closed basement, but open to the public. A Turkish telenovela couldn't have produced such a story."
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us