The Aleppo Codex is a complete manuscript of the Bible which was set down on parchment scrolls in Tiberias in 930 approximately. It is considered by many scholars to the most accurate copy of the Hebrew Bible extant today, and serves as a source of cantillation and vocalization of the Biblical text. For over a thousand years the manuscript was kept by prominent Jewish communities in the East: from Tiberias, the Codex reached the Karaite community in Jerusalem, was captured during the Crusades and ransomed by the Jewish community in Cairo – where it was seen by Maimonides, who attested to it accuracy – and ended up in the city of Aleppo.
In 1947, after the UN decision regarding the partition of Palestine and the establishment of the Jewish state, rioting against the Jews broke out in Syria and the synagogue in which the Codex was kept was sacked and burnt. It was first thought that the entire Codex had been lost, but it later turned out that it had been rescued and hidden. In 1958 the Codex was smuggled from Syria to Israel via Turkey and given to the President of Israel, Izhak Ben-Zvi. The President established a committee which would preserve the Codex, giving it the status of sacred property. Today the Codex is kept in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
When it arrived in Israel, the Codex consisted of 294 pages, inscribed on both sides. An examination revealed that many pages were missing, having been damaged in the riots in 1947. Most of the damage had been sustained by the first part of the manuscript, and all that remained of the Pentateuch were a few pages of Genesis and the last chapters of Deuteronomy. Some of the Codex was also missing, and therefore parts of the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, the Scroll of Esther and the Books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah are not found in the Codex we have today. The Codex originally probably held 487 pages, which means that a whole third is now missing.
Much effort has been made to locate the missing parts of the Codex, or to reconstruct the missing text. To this very day, it is hard to determine what happened to the missing parts: were they lost, ruined or hidden? These efforts were mainly to no avail, although two pages were found: a whole page from the Book of Chronicles was found in the possession of a family from Aleppo living in New York City, and this page was eventually given the Israel Museum and is now kept with the rest of the Codex. A fragment from the Book of Exodus was also found in the possession of a member of a family of Aleppine descent in New York, and had been kept in his wallet as a kind of talisman. A scan of this fragment was sent to Israel.