Free Republic

On November 29, 1947, the very day that Hebrew University Professor E.L. Sukenik acquired the first three Dead Sea Scrolls and brought them back to Jerusalem, the United Nations passed by a two -thirds vote the resolution partitioning Palestine, effectively creating a Jewish state for the first time in two millennia. To Sukenik, it was almost as if the apocalypse had arrived: A 2,000-year-old Isaiah scroll -- which prophesied the return of Israel -- surfaced virtually on the same day that Jewish sovereignty was reestablished in the Holy Land. But within two days of that glorious day in Jewish history,...

Aleppo is burning. You can read about it day after day on the front pages, or on the websites of Syrians trying to organize support for their fight against the latest Assad. Caught between regulars and irregulars, thugs in uniform and out, Aleppo's inhabitants run for cover, or hunker down where they are and wait for the next air raid, the next suicide bombing, the next massacre. Or just the next bus out. Which could be blown to smithereens. By either side. The choices grow limited: Is it better to be killed by the grandly styled Free Syrian Army or...

Theft, espionage, corruption and a cover-up lasting decades — a new book by a Times of Israel reporter exposes the extraordinary saga of the uniquely revered, 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex A new book by a Times of Israel reporter reveals dramatic new information about the fate of a manuscript many consider Judaism’s most important book — the 1,100-year-old Aleppo Codex.The manuscript — or the part of it that did not go mysteriously missing in the mid-20th century — is currently held alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It is revered as the authoritative version of the Hebrew...