Page 22 - Nachlaot Very Advanced RA1 130918
P. 22
Very Advanced Level – רמה מתקדמת מאד
Adas Synagogue
There is a large, beautiful synagogue in Nachlaot-the Adas Synagogue. This is the
synagogue of the Jewish community from Syria-Congregation Aram Tzuba. The
community has a long and interesting history, but we will tell only one story: the story
about the "Crown" of Aram Tzuba. "Crown" is a kind of nickname for the complete Old
Testament: the Tnach (Hebrew acronym for the three major divisions of the Jewish Bible:
Torah, Prophets, and Writings).
The Crown of Aram Tzuba is an important book of the Tnach. It is over 1000 years old!
The Tnach is not a normal book. Every letter of the Tnach teaches us something.
Therefore, the early Rabbis established rules for the writing of the Tnach. These early
Rabbis were called "the bearers of the Tradition". One of the more important of the
"bearers of the Tradition" was Aharon ben Asher. Aharon ben Asher lived in Tiberius
about 1000 years ago. With the help of a sopher (person trained and entitled to write
sacred documents) named Shlomo, he wrote a Tnach. This Tnach was very important.
Aharon ben Asher was a well-known "bearer of the Tradition", and the Tnach that he
wrote became the standard for writing the Tnach. The Tnach that Aharon ben Asher wrote
was in Tiberius for a little more than 100 years. It was then moved to Jerusalem. Thirty-
five years later, the Crusades arrived in Jerusalem. It is thought that the Crusaders took
the book and that Egyptian Jews paid a heavy ransom to retrieve it. In this way the book
arrived in Egypt.
The Crown was in Egypt for several hundred years. It is thought that Rambam, one of the
more important Jewish scholars in history, read the book and then wrote rules for the
correct writing of the Tnach.
The Crown arrived to the Jewish community in Halab, Syria in the 15th century. The
community is called Aram Tzuba; therefore the Tnach was called the Crown of Aram
Tzuba.
The Crown was so important to the Jews of Halab that they kept it in their synagogue in a
crate with two locks. In 1947, a pogrom took place in Halab. The Syrians entered the
synagogue and smashed the crate that held the Crown. We don't know exactly what the
Syrians did with the Crown, but many pages of the Crown disappeared. Some Jews who
came to the synagogue after the pogrom took the remaining pages. For ten years, the
Crown went from hand to hand within the Jewish community of Aram Tzuba.
In Israel, people heard about the Crown and wanted to bring it here in order to preserve
what had remained. Yitzhak ben Tzvi, the second President of Israel, and Professor
Cassuto, Professor of the Tnach, worked for years to bring the Crown to Israel. In 1957, a
Jew from Halab, Mordechai Pacham, made Aliyah to Israel and smuggled the Crown into
Israel by hiding it in a washing machine.
Today we can view the Crown in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Many people continue
to look all over the world for the missing pages.
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