{"id":36773,"date":"2021-04-23T01:39:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T08:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=36773"},"modified":"2021-04-22T21:45:48","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T04:45:48","slug":"seeking-siddurs-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/04\/23\/seeking-siddurs-return\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeking siddur\u2019s return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan is seeking to repatriate a 1,200-year-old siddur, which is currently housed at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/strong>(photo from Museum of the Bible)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The National Museum of Afghanistan, established in 1919 at the former Bagh-i-Bala royal palace overlooking Kabul, reflects both the multifaith heritage and tortured history of the Central Asian country that once dominated the Silk Road linking Europe and East Asia.<\/p>\n

Following the outbreak of Afghanistan\u2019s civil war in 1992, the museum was repeatedly shelled. It suffered heavy damage in a May 12, 1993, rocket strike. The combination of Taliban mortars and looters resulted in the loss of 70% of the 100,000 prehistoric, Hellenistic, Buddhist, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Islamic and Jewish objects once in its collection. Those pilfered artifacts flooded antiquities markets in London, Paris, New York and elsewhere. Now, the pro-Western regime of President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai \u2013 formerly an anthropology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. \u2013 wants its cultural legacy returned. Among the treasures it is seeking to repatriate is a 1,200-year-old siddur <\/em>(prayer book) \u2013 the world\u2019s oldest Hebrew manuscript after the Dead Sea Scrolls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is our responsibility to get back our ancient treasures,\u201d said Abdul Manan Shiway e-Sharq \u2013 the country\u2019s deputy minister for information and publications in the Ministry of Information and Culture \u2013 in the first-ever on-the-record interview between an Afghani official and an Israeli journalist.<\/p>\n

Shiway e-Sharq said photos of the ancient siddur in Kabul\u2019s National Museum, dating from 1998, contradict the ownership documents provided by the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. The MotB says it bought the siddur in 2013 from antiquities dealers in the United Kingdom who provided provenance documents showing the manuscript had been in Britain since the 1950s. The MotB paid $2.5 million for the prayer book. Though Shiway e-Sharq appraised the unique volume at $30 million for insurance purposes, it truly is priceless.<\/p>\n

The prayer book may have belonged to the Radhanites, a little-known group of medieval merchants, some Jewish, who traded along the Silk Road linking Christian Europe, the Islamic world, China and India during the early Middle Ages. The Radhanites\u2019 entrep\u00f4ts and Afghanistan\u2019s early Jewish community were likely destroyed in the 12th and 13th centuries, as the Mongol Empire grew from the steppes of Mongolia to extend from Europe to China.<\/p>\n

Responding to a query, MotB\u2019s chief curator Jeff Kloha said the museum will share results of an investigation when completed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs noted on the museum\u2019s provenance research web page, museum staff continues to work with external scholars and experts to research this item\u2019s historical and religious significance, as well the item\u2019s history in (apparently) Afghanistan and later Israel and the United States,\u201d Kloha said. \u201cThat research is progressing and nearing completion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The allegation that the MotB\u2019s rare Afghan Hebrew prayer book is another ancient Near Eastern treasure that was smuggled out of its country of origin is the latest in a series of scandals about looted and forged antiquities that has rocked the Museum of the Bible since its 2017 opening.<\/p>\n

The MotB recently shipped 8,000 clay tablets back to Baghdad that may have been taken from the Iraq Museum in 2003, when looters overran it during the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. At the end of January 2021, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security returned 5,500 papyrus fragments from the MotB with \u201cinsufficient\u201d provenance to Egypt\u2019s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, concluding Cairo\u2019s efforts since 2016 to regain its antiquities. And, the museum has acknowledged that all of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments it acquired are forgeries.<\/p>\n

MotB founder Steve Green, an evangelical Christian whose family owns the Hobby Lobby craft store chain, and chief curator Kloha have worked to tighten the museum\u2019s acquisition policies after the U.S. government reached a settlement with Hobby Lobby in 2017 requiring the chain store to pay a $3 million fine for illegally importing ancient artifacts.<\/p>\n

Leon Hill, the in-house counsel for Transparent Business Solutions, a Dutch company that specializes in corporate integrity management, is keen to see a resolution to the dispute over the ancient siddur. He is dismissive of Green\u2019s explanation that he and Kloha are novices in the museum business and the acquisition of artifacts. \u201cThey can\u2019t continue to say that. They\u2019re no longer new. They have a duty to know better. They have a duty to the history and heritage of the artifacts they purport to protect.\u201d<\/p>\n

He accused the MotB of \u201ccultural imperialism.\u201d He said, \u201cWe hope that we won\u2019t need to be hired by the Afghan government, and that the Museum of the Bible will do the right thing in the right way quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gil Zohar<\/strong> is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Afghanistan is seeking to repatriate a 1,200-year-old siddur, which is currently housed at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.\u00a0(photo from Museum of the Bible) The National Museum of Afghanistan, established in 1919 at the former Bagh-i-Bala royal palace overlooking Kabul, reflects both the multifaith heritage and tortured history of the Central Asian country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[20489,1287,4242,20490,20488,2251,4438,5806,20487],"class_list":["post-36773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-abdul-manan-shiway-e-sharq","tag-afghanistan","tag-history","tag-jeff-kloha","tag-kabul","tag-law","tag-museum-of-the-bible","tag-religion","tag-siddur"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}