Community Magazine September 2012

DAVE GORDON T he hurried clopping of shoes through the narrow streets of Halab (Aleppo, Syria), like a stampede in all directions, lasted through the night. Windows shattered. Doors were beaten down. Shouts of “ harik – fire!” shrieked through the air, while clouds of thick, black smoke billowed to the skies all around. Crowds of people, consumed by coughing or running or blinding disorientation, scrambled, trampling and tripping wherever they went. And after them, came other crowds – larger in number– moving with fierce purpose, led by makeshift torches, alighting new fires to homes, shops and anything else that would catch fire. Their shoes were heard, too; often muffled by absorption, pounding against human flesh or bone, on bodies grounded, followed by bursts of pain or groans. The radio described it euphemistically as “political upheaval,” and announced that supporters of the new regime must not be tolerated. This was not Aleppo of 2012. This was Aleppo in November, 1947. Following the United Nations’ vote to partition the land of Israel to establish a Jewish state, the Jewish people in Syria – who had thrived there for four millennia – were targeted for days by rioting mobs, egged on by the government. It seemed that no window or door was left intact in any of the dozens of synagogues of Aram Soba (the biblical name of Aleppo). Chairs and books were set aflame. Torahs were tossed into the inferno as extra fuel. In addition to at least 75 murders of innocent Jewish citizens, the government sanctionedArab mob gutted nearly 20 synagogues and smashed, burned and looted five Jewish schools and some 50 Jewish-owned shops. A Crown Set Ablaze Anti-Jewish riots were not confined to Halab during this period. Many other cities and towns throughout the Arab world also saw their share of violence and destruction. But in Aleppo, the stakes seemed higher. A priceless, treasured holy book, – the thousand- plus-year-old Keter Aram Soba (Crown of Aleppo), also called the Aleppo Codex – which had been guarded with people’s lives for hundreds of years, allegedly went up in flames together with the building that housed it. It was deduced, amongst the chaos, that rioters – well aware of the value of the Codex to the Jewish people – rushed into the Kinees Kibere of Halab (Great Synagogue of Aleppo), grabbed the iron chest that contained the Codex, and with vengeful glee, busted the lock and lit this precious parchment. The tragedy was especially agonizing for the Halabi community, which for countless generations had been instilled not only with the pride of being protectors of the Keter, but also the dire warnings of failing to do so. These warnings, which were widely known among Halabis of all ages, were expressed in severe terms in the form curses inscribed on the Keter itself by the rabbis of Halab from previous generations. “Cursed be its seller, cursed be its defiler and cursed be the community of Aram Soba if it were to depart from there.” Despite the joyous news of the reconstitution of the Jewish State, it was a sad day in Jewish history. Death and destruction consumed Jewish communities of the Near East and one of the most important preserved holy books had reportedly gone up in smoke. That was the official story and, apparently for security reasons, the official end of the Aleppo Codex. But 10 years later, a new, surprising development arose. The Codex’s Place in Jerusalem In 1958, rumors spread that, unbelievably, not only had the Codex survived the riots, it had also somehow been smuggled to Israel. According to reports, the Codex’s odyssey back to Israel began when the shamosh (sexton) of the Kinees Kibere of Halab , a man named Asher Baghdadi, and his son, returned to the kinees after the riots. The two retrieved the charred pages of the Keter and handed them over to two community leaders, Hacham Moshe Tawil and Shlomo Zaafrani. After the Syrian government began investigating the whereabouts of the Keter, following a $20 million offer for the treasure from an American antiquities dealer, community leaders maintained the official account of the book’s destruction while transferring it to a local Christian merchant for safe keeping. The manuscript was later moved to a storeroom owned by a Jewish textile merchant named Ibrahim Effendi-Cohen, where it may have remained for some time. By 1957, with about 80 percent of the pre-1947 Halabi of the ALEPPO CODEX The thousand-year-old book with a thousand stories Mysteries o M o M o M o M o M o M o M o M 30 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE