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The Aleppo Codex

כֶּתֶר אֲרַם צוֹבָא

The model codex of the Tiberian Masoretes, written in Tiberias about 930, endorsed by Maimonides and guarded for six centuries in Aleppo. Here are the reference notes that describe it and the essays that tell its story.

Read the reference noteRead the essays
Illustration of the Aleppo Codex open on a reading stand
The Aleppo Codex, model of the Ben Asher tradition
WrittenTiberias, about 920 to 930
ScribeShlomo ben Buya’a, consonants
Pointed byAaron ben Asher, vowels and Masorah
TodayAbout 294 of some 487 leaves, Israel Museum

Reference notes

The codex itself, the books written about it, the editions built on it and the two cities that kept it

The codexAleppo CodexThe Aleppo Codex (Keter Aram Tzova), the model Ben Asher Hebrew Bible of the tenth century, endorsed by Maimonides and incomplete since 1947.BookCrown of AleppoCrown of Aleppo by Hayim Tawil and Bernard Schneider (2010), an illustrated history of the Aleppo Codex and the mystery of its missing pages.BookThe Aleppo Codex (Friedman)Matti Friedman’s The Aleppo Codex (2012), the hunt for the Ben Asher Bible, its survival through fire and war, and the mystery of its missing pages.EditionThe Jerusalem Crown and the Aleppo TextThe Jerusalem Crown (2000), the Hebrew University Bible that presents the text and Masorah of the Aleppo Codex by the method of Mordechai Breuer.EditionThe Hebrew University Bible as an EditionThe Hebrew University Bible, its diplomatic text of the Aleppo Codex, its four apparatuses, its volumes of the Prophets and its editors.PlaceAleppoA history of Aleppo (Aram Tsova): the Great Synagogue, the Aleppo Codex, medieval rabbinic life, and the community’s fate in the twentieth century.PlaceTiberias and Two Millennia of HistoryTiberias from its Herodian founding to today, the Jerusalem Talmud, the Masoretes and the Aleppo Codex, Hattin, Ottoman revival and 1948.

Journal essays

Its making, its long keeping in Aleppo, the fire of 1947, the hunt for the lost leaves and the editions that print it today

Medieval Jewish scholar in a long dark robe reading intently from a large open Hebrew Bible codex on a heavy wooden lectern, stone wall of bound codices behind, single oil candle lighting the page, matrix woodcut with ochre and sepia, edge-to-edge full-bleed compositionHebrewThe Aleppo Codex and the Tiberian Standard12 Oct 2026Ink and watercolour illustration of two men seated either side of a low table with the open Aleppo Codex, each page in three columns, in a vaulted stone room lit by a lamp in a nicheScriptureThe Aleppo Codex21 Oct 2026Ink and watercolour illustration of visitors on the plaza before the white dome of the Shrine of the Book and its black basalt wall in JerusalemTransmissionThe Crown of Aleppo9 Oct 2026Hand-painted woodcut illustration in warm ochre and sepia of a closed bound parchment manuscript with a tooled leather binding and brass clasps, resting on a wooden lectern in a Syrian synagogue, a reader in a long dark robe and head covering with a clearly drawn face beside it, hanging oil lamps overhead and the embroidered curtain of the Torah ark at the right.PlacesA Crown of Paper23 Oct 2026MasoretesThe Crown in the Flames – Rescuing the Aleppo Codex2 Nov 2026MasoretesThe Missing Leaves – The Global Hunt for the Aleppo Codex2 Nov 2026Hand-painted woodcut illustration in warm ochre and sepia, of an open book on a worn wooden desk with a magnifying glass at one corner and a teacup at the other. A single small foreground figure (a journalist in a dark jacket) stands beside the desk reading from a folio of notes. The wall behind carries a soft-wash photograph of the Aleppo souk.BooksMatti Friedman, The Aleppo Codex9 Oct 2026A large printed Hebrew Bible open on a reading table beside a red cloth slipcase and a smaller companion volume, with the stone buildings of modern Jerusalem beyond the windowBooksThe Jerusalem Crown Edition of the Hebrew Bible10 Nov 2026TransmissionMiqraot Gedolot HaKeter and the Return of the Crown13 Nov 2026

On the sister site, nekud.click. Aleppo, Five Thousand Years Beneath the Citadel, the long history of the city whose synagogue kept the Crown.

Read on nekud.click

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