The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible by Matti Friedman

(Algonquin, $25)

For 11 centuries, “Judaism’s most important book” has been “lusted over, stolen, and neglected,” said Brook Wilensky-Lanford in The Boston Globe. Dictated by the great 10th-century rabbi Aaron Ben-Asher, the Aleppo Codex is considered the definitive version of the Hebrew Bible, and in investigating its complex history, Israeli journalist Matti Friedman hit storytelling gold. Stolen by Christian Crusaders in 1099, the codex was rescued by a wealthy Jewish community in Egypt, which paid a ransom for the document and eventually moved it to Aleppo, Syria. There it is thought to have been kept under guard for six centuries until 1947, when mobs angered by the creation of Israel set fire to the synagogue. At first, the codex was presumed lost.

Not so fast, said Jackson Holahan in CSMonitor.com. Friedman’s book “reads more like a detective story than a work of history,” and its greatest thrills involve the codex’s history since 1947. In 1958, it mysteriously reappeared, delivered by a Syrian cheese merchant to Israeli President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. But there was no explanation as to why 40 percent of the original pages, including the Torah, were missing. Friedman’s “dogged pursuit” of the story has provided evidence that various thefts and other crimes were perpetrated by some of Israel’s highest-ranking officials, “the very people who were entrusted with ensuring the priceless relic’s safekeeping.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“This is where Friedman’s investigation gets especially lively,” said Laura Miller in Salon.com. Friedman discovers pages of the codex scattered as far from Jerusalem as Brooklyn. In an attempt to determine who ripped out the core of the codex and began selling it on the black market, he interviews a former Mossad agent and an 84-year-old millionaire who vaguely warns the reporter that he might be endangering his health. As Friedman zeroes in on possible culprits, The Aleppo Codex “builds to a moral crescendo more impressive than the climactic fight scene in any thriller.”