Jerusalem Crown

Book excerpt: Keter Yerushalayim, the Jerusalem Crown, is the first edition of the Aleppo Codex as a printed Bible. This codex is the oldest known complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The famous grammarian and scribe Aaron ben Asher inserted the vocalization signs, accentuation marks and the Masorah. Because he also proofread the manuscript several times over, it became the authoritative text due to its accepted accuracy. After a long odyssey the codex found its way to Jerusalem in 1958, with unfortunately a major portion missing. In 1976 a facsimile of the manuscript was published and inspired the book edition closely resembling the original text. Thanks to the painstaking work of the renowned Scholar Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, the lost parts - almost the entire Pentateuch - could be reconstructed. To emulate the original, the Jerusalem Crown is laid out in three columns and employs a unique typeface re-creating the calligraphy of the Aleppo Codex. The census for the chapters and verses as well as the names of the weekly torah portions and their divisions for the synagogal reading were added. A short appendix explains the principles of the text recreation and lists the deviations from the standard Leningrad Codex. Dr. Mordechai Glatzer, a globally recognized expert in the history of printing, edited the companion volume. It contains contributions on various aspects of the manuscript's significance and an in-depth description of its history. Notably, Dr. Yosef Ofer's introduction to the Masorah clarifies from where the codex's authority stems and why its text can be regarded as nearly error free. The documentation folder of the Keter Yerushalayim contains an original set of pages, the Book of Ruth, and the original decorative front page with its gold printed title as a sample booklet, complete with an embossed cover of heavy crimson paper. There is also a sample chapter of the companion volume included in the set which is presented in a gold-embossed dark-blue folder of raw silk. The charge for the documentation kit will be credited if a copy of the numbered Special Edition is ordered subsequently.