Friedman gives a masterful account of a major religious document, housed with the better known Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem’s Shrine of the Book. The Aleppo Codex, a volume of parchment folios written in Tiberius circa 930 C.E., is considered the most accurate text of the Hebrew Bible. Stolen by Crusaders from a Jerusalem synagogue, the codex made its way …
When the Exodus was now
The Passover festival of 1946 found the men of the 650th Company, a British army transport unit, in the southern Italian town of Capua. The soldiers, Jews from Palestine who had signed up to fight in British uniform, were poised between two wars. The world war had ended a year before. Israel’s independence war, in which most of them would …
The serious history of a comical town
How, you may ask, was Chelm created? The truest answer to that question, they say, is that Chelm, the most famous town in Jewish folklore, came into being when the Lord sent an angel with a sack of foolish souls to distribute across the entire world, and the angel tripped and spilled them all in the same place. That, we …
In Dubai killing, some see an espionage era dying in a blaze of publicity
JERUSALEM (AP) _ The killing of a Hamas operative in a Dubai hotel may signal the end of an era: the moment when modern technology finally caught up with the cloak-and-dagger world of disguised assassins and fake passports. “The last assassination of its kind,” said a headline in the Israeli daily Haaretz. Some believe the fallout _ the killers whose …
Grisly theory for Holy Land mystery
RUJM AL-HIRI, Golan Heights (AP) — A newly proposed solution to an ancient enigma is reviving debate about the nature of a mysterious prehistoric site that some call the Holy Land’s answer to Stonehenge. Some scholars believe the structure of concentric stone circles known as Rujm al-Hiri was an astrological temple or observatory, others a burial complex. The new theory …
In Israel, Rich and Famous Flock to Wonder Rabbi
ASHDOD, Israel (AP) A few evenings every month, some of Israel’s wealthiest and most powerful people can be found in a living room in this seaside city, waiting to have a few minutes with a rabbi they see as an adviser, guru or miracle worker. Yoshiyahu Pinto is slightly stooped, his long beard and hair unkempt. He looks older than …
An Israeli algorithm sheds light on Bible
JERUSALEM (AP) — Software developed by an Israeli team is giving intriguing new hints about what researchers believe to be the multiple hands that wrote the Bible. The new software analyzes style and word choices to distinguish parts of a single text written by different authors, and when applied to the Bible its algorithm teased out distinct writerly voices in …
A Crusader town emerges under an old Israeli port
ACRE, Israel (AP) — Off the track beaten by most Holy Land tourists lies one of the richest archaeological sites in a country full of them: the walled port of Acre, where the busy alleys of an Ottoman-era town cover a uniquely intact Crusader city now being rediscovered. Preparing to open a new subterranean section to the public, workers cleaned …
Religious politics foil fire exit at Holy Sepulcher
JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of Christian believers will fill the medieval chambers of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Saturday for a ritual known as the Holy Fire, packed shoulder to shoulder and holding burning candles as pilgrims have done for centuries. And, as in centuries past, the church will still have only one door and no fire exit. …
Details emerge of bloodshed aboard Gaza-bound ship
JERUSALEM (AP) _ At 4:30 a.m., from her perch on the bridge of a passenger ship in the Mediterranean Sea, Hanin Zoabi saw the first lights of fast-approaching Israeli gunships and helicopters. Norman Paech awoke to the sound of explosions. Minutes later, an Israeli commando, sent to take over the ship in what was expected to be a quick and …