Day 605 - Ancient Bibles receive new homes for Torah holiday

The Times of Israel Daily Briefing

The Times of Israel

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🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

Religions reporter Rossella Tercatin joins host Jessica Steinberg for today's episode.

Nearly two years after the ancient, nearly complete Codex Sassoon bible was first introduced at the Anu Museum, days before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, the book of Torah is inaugurated at the museum, in the presence of released hostage Agam Berger, in a moving, bittersweet ceremony, tells Tercatin. Another ancient bible, the Shem Tov bible, this one only 700 years old, was also inaugurated permanently at the National Library of Israel, both in time for the Shavuot holiday.

Tercatin also looks at the ongoing issues of conversion in Israel, following a meeting last week of the Knesset Aliyah Committee devoted to the topic of conversions on Tuesday, ahead of the Shavuot festival. Only about half of those who start the process to convert manage to complete the journey, and the Conversion Authority is currently formally without a director, leaving nobody can sign the official conversion certificates, complex matters that Tercatin discusses.

Steinberg talks about an art exhibit currently at Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, marking the 80th anniversary of the kibbutz's Shavuot ceremony, created by two pioneering kibbutz members in the 1940s to mark the agricultural and harvest aspects of the festival.

Finally, Tercatin discusses the Messianic community in Israel, and its connection to Yaron Lischinsky, the Israel Embassy staffer who was killed alongside his soon-to-be-fiance, Sarah Milgrim, on May 21 in an antisemitic attack at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.

Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Codex Sassoon, oldest near-complete Hebrew Bible, displayed in Israel after Oct. 7 delay

Ahead of Shavuot, thousands of converts remain unrecognized by state, stuck in limbo

Kibbutz marks 80 years of Shavuot song and dance with pioneering artworks

For Messianic Jews in Jerusalem, Yaron Lischinsky’s murder was a personal loss

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by the Pod-Waves and video edited by Thomas Girsch.

IMAGE: The 'Codex Sassoon' bible is displayed at Sotheby's in New York on February 15, 2023. (Ed Jones/AFP)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, welcome to the Times of Israel's daily briefing. It is Monday, June 2nd, and I'm Jessica Steinberg. I'm speaking today with archaeology and religions reporter Rosela Terkartin. Hi, Rosela. How are you? Hach Samar. Jessica, it's good to be here. Good to have you here. It is day 605 of the war. It's the holiday of Chavuot here in Israel, which began last
0:23.5	night, and Rasella and I will discuss some more holiday-related material, including the official
0:30.4	inauguration of the Codex Sasson, the world's oldest nearly complete Hebrew Bible at the
0:36.1	Annam Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.
0:39.0	On this holiday, that also very much includes the story of Ruth, the Moabite, and her mother-in-law
0:44.0	Naomi. We'll talk about conversion in Israel and what that looks like right now, as well as how
0:49.5	one kibbutz is marking this particular chavut. We'll also talk about Yaronne Lyshinsky, who is very
0:55.9	tragically killed in a terror incident in Washington, D.C., and the messianic community that he came
1:02.0	from here in Jerusalem. So stay with us.
1:10.5	We're being used. Jews are being used on Israel, on anti-Semitism, for other purposes.
1:17.5	And that puts us in a dilemma. If it was Jews-quant Jews, it's one thing to stand up.
1:23.3	But now, when Jews are being used on immigration issues, on woke issues, makes it a lot more difficult when to say something or not say something.
1:32.3	On the most recent episode of identity crisis, Yehuda Kurtzer speaks with Abe Foxman, long-time anti-defamation league leader and Holocaust survivor, about the relationship between major Jewish organizations and those in power,
1:45.0	and to understand when and how to speak up for the Jewish people.
1:49.6	Join us as we take on the issues facing contemporary Jewish life on identity crisis from
1:54.3	the Shalom Hartman Institute, wherever you get your podcasts.
2:03.3	Okay, Rosela, let's start with the Codex, which you and I, as we were planning this podcast,
2:11.0	we both talked about the fact that I remembered covering its arrival in Israel, its initial
2:17.4	arrival, but of course, this was before
2:20.1	October 7, 2023, and the Hamas terror attack that changed everything. And you now, happily, I'm
2:28.7	sure there was a lot of bittersweet in it as well, but you covered its permanent inauguration.
2:33.5	And I want to hear what that was
	...

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