The Jewish Book They Couldn’t Destroy

Did you know one Jewish book survived the Inquisition, the Nazis, and a modern siege? It was made in Barcelona around 1350, illuminated in gold, probably a wedding gift. Its pages are still stained with Passover wine. In 1492, it left Spain with the exiles. A century later, a church sensor examined it in Italy and signed his name in it instead of burning it. It surfaced in Sievo in 1894, sold to the National Museum by a family who had carried it for generations. When the Nazis came for it, the museum's Muslim librarian hid it under his coat, carried it into the mountains and left it in a village mosque for the rest of the war. It returned to the museum when the war ended. Then in 1992, Sievo came under siege. The museum was shelled and the book was moved into a bank vault. In 1995, 3 years into that siege, it was carried out and opened at a seda table in a city still under fire. 600 years, every empire that tried, it is still here. Follow Jewish Time Machine for more stories like