Did He Write It or Not? The Mystery of the Torah Scroll Attributed to the Ran

This centuries-old Torah scroll underwent many travails, changing not only its geographical location multiple times but also its identity and history. “Everything depends on luck, even a Torah scroll in the Holy Ark,” says the Zohar. It seems this Torah scroll did not have the best of luck.

Daniel Lipson | 21.11.24

The Torah scroll once attributed to the Ran, the National Library of Israel, the Ktiv Project

One day in 1978, a centuries-old Torah scroll was discovered deep inside the National Library of Israel, practically by coincidence. The scroll, written on dark parchment, also had a silver plate, which was apparently discovered beforehand, with an etched explanation of the scroll’s origins. The scroll’s height was almost half a meter, and it was written in early Sephardic script. The scroll had not been cataloged nor did it appear in our records of manuscripts. In short, a mystery (patience, we’ve only just begun and from here onwards things will only get weirder). No-one knew how it ended up in the collection, but the experts at the National Library immediately identified what this Torah scroll was.

Some 40 years earlier, on the eve of Passover in 1936, the Haaretz newspaper published a fascinating article on a unique Torah scroll that had been discovered. The article was written by Rabbi Baruch Toledano, a scholar and author who once discovered a copy of the famous Commentary on the Mishnah in Maimonides’ own handwriting (sections of which are preserved at the National Library).

According to the article, the scroll was written by none other than Rabeinu Nissim Ben Reuven of Gerona (Girona) (1290-1376), known as “The Ran”, an important commentator and religious jurist in 14^th century Spain. After the Jewish expulsion from Spain, one of the exiles – a respected elder – brought the scroll from Spain to a small Jewish community based in Brazil. There, a Shadar – an emissary of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel – acquired the scroll in the early 20^th century. This emissary, Chacham Yahya Dahan from the northern city of Tiberias, brought the scroll to the Holy Land.

Antique Torah scrolls are spread throughout the world, but there is usually no evidence of their scribe. This one, however, had clear signs pointing to the author. One of the most prominent is the colophon (a portion of text describing the time and circumstances of its writing) written on the other side of the Torah scroll’s parchment, at its very beginning.

Adding a theoretical portion to a kosher Torah scroll is considered an unconventional and religiously very problematic action. Still, the colophon is there, prominently displayed, telling the scroll’s tale in Sephardic script written in brown ink. The colophon’s author, according to its text, is Rav Reuven, the son of the Ran. He describes the troubles which befell the Jews of Spain during the Christian pogroms of 1391, writing that he managed to flee with his father’s scroll:

“For three months, the fire of conflagration spread in the holy communities of the children of Israel, in the exile of Spain… the kingdoms of Castile, Toledo, Seville, Majorca, Cordoba, Valencia, Barcelona, Aragon, Granada… a blow of sword, killing and death, religious destruction, captivity … and we were sold as slaves and handmaidens to the Yishmaelites… the seekers of blood carried out their plot… and I saved all the scrolls of our holy Torah and with them this book that belonged to my father and mentor… and our heart is filled with terror and fear and our lives are torn for there is no faith as to our end…”

20240925 085213 — The colophon at the beginning of the Torah scroll, on its back

Rabbi Toledano didn’t suffice with the testament of the colophon as evidence of the scribe’s identity, and he presented additional proof in his article in Haaretz: the form of the some of the Hebrew qof (kuf – ק) letters in the scroll. Here’s what Rabbi Simeon Ben Zemah Dura (1361-1444) said on the matter in his responsa:

“I also heard that the Rabbi R. Nissim Gerondi ob”m who was in Barcelona and who was the Rabbi of my rabbis ob”m that he wrote a Torah scroll for himself and the legs of the [letter] qof would be stuck to their roof.” (Shut Tashbetz, 1.51)

And indeed, the Torah scroll in question often had the qof, which is usually made up of two separate parts, connected in a way reminiscent of the letter chet – ח, with a long left leg.

Remember the silver plate that came with the scroll? The form of the letters and the menorah etched on it indicate that the plate was not made in the Ran’s time and was actually a copy, yet the text of the plate explicitly attests that the Ran wrote the scroll himself and donated it to the synagogue:

“This holy Torah scroll, I wrote for myself and my merit, Nissim son of my master, my father, teacher, and Rabbi Reuven Girondi, may his creator preserve him and keep him alive. I gave on condition to the synagogue of Kohelet Yaakov to the holy congregation in Barcelona…”

The 1936 newspaper article was not the only appearance of the Torah scroll in question. Scholar and historian Shmuel Kraus mentions it in his book Korot Batei Hatfilah Beyisrael [The History of Jewish Prayer Houses, published in 1955 after his death]. Kraus saw the scroll when he visited Tiberias in 1934. He describes the scroll as being made of the skin of a red deer and being difficult to read. The scroll’s author asked Kraus to help him sell it, but Kraus didn’t succeed in brokering a transaction. A few years later, another attempt was made to sell the scroll in Jerusalem.

The last testament to the scroll’s existence before its disappearance appears in the book Tzidkat Hatzadik [The Righteousness of the Tzadik] by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Friedman, who wrote that in the summer of 1952, he travelled to the Chacham Yahya Dahan (the emissary we mentioned earlier) in Tiberias and saw the Ran’s Torah scroll there.

Doubts begin to emerge

The enthusiasm which accompanied the important and accidental discovery at the National Library was quickly dampened by scholars who had questions about the source of the Torah scroll and its ostensible author. Despite the careful argument made by Rabbi Toledano in 1936, doubters did not lack alternative explanations. For instance, it was known that the lettering styles in Jewish holy books differed among Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews and depended on the period in which they were written. Indeed, some of the letters in the Torah scroll in question were different than those used in the time and place in which the Ran lived.

Shlomo Zucker of the National Library’s manuscript department noted another strange fact: In the Torah scroll in question, the song of Haazinu contained 70 lines, yet in the Ran’s time it was customary to use 67 lines, in accordance with a ruling by Maimonides.

האזינו — *Haazinu* in 70 lines instead of the 67 used during the Ran’s lifetime

Doubts also arose as to the colophon. It turned out that its description of the 1391 pogroms was chronologically inaccurate. It also contained words that were relatively modern compared to the Ran’s time, and it also contained acronyms unknown from other sources. Furthermore, acronyms were marked with quotation marks, as is done today in Hebrew, even though in the Ran’s time – and later – they were marked by periods.

Another problem with the colophon’s history is that it mentioned the city of Granada in southern Spain as one of the cities attacked by Christian pogroms – except that in that year, Granada was still in Muslim hands. A slightly different spelling of Granada was etched into the silver plate, a text supposedly written by the Ran:

“This Torah scroll I wrote for myself and for my merit … Nissim son of my master, father, teacher and Rabbi Reuven Grinodi.

For scholars, the great contradiction here is that the Ran, like Maimonides, Rabeinu Yonah, and others, lived in the city of Girona in northeast Spain and not Granada/Grinoda/Grinodi in its south. In his article, Rabbi Toledano tried to explain this contradiction by suggesting that perhaps the Ran was indeed from Granada and not from Girona as originally thought, but this explanation was rejected by other scholars.

ספרד — Map of Spain, Abraham Ortelius, Amsterdam 1586. National Library of Israel collections

Despite the multiple questions surrounding the origin of the Torah scroll, the National Library accepted the source’s own testimony in the colophon and silver plate and presented the scroll as having been the Ran’s own creation. In 1992, to mark 500 years since the Spanish Expulsion and 100 years since the founding of the National Library, the Library put on a special exhibit of “Books [and manuscripts] from Spain.” The exhibit’s catalog shows the scroll under the heading “Torah scroll written by Rabbi Nissim Ben Reuven Girondi (the Ran) for himself” and notes that the scroll was acquired by the Library. No further details were provided. Eight years later, to mark the 75^th anniversary of Hebrew University, the scroll was once again put on display and presented in the printed catalog.

And the results are in…

Yet the doubts persisted. In 2012, a sample of the scroll’s parchment was sent to a lab at the Weizmann Institute to conduct a carbon-14 test on it. Since this test is used to date archaeological findings containing organic material, a parchment made of animal skin is very appropriate for such a test.

The results showed, by a probability of 86%, that the Torah scroll is dated to the time period of 1470-1680 – at least 100 years after the Ran’s death. Put another way: the scroll may be old, but the colophon and the plate are false and attest to a forgery. It could be that the forgery was committed to increase the value of the scroll. In an effort to explain the errors in the descriptions, scholars believe the forger who added the colophon and created the silver plate inscription was not very familiar with Spain’s geography and confused Girona and Granada. In his book Chazon Tverimun, which discusses the counterfeiting industry in Tiberias, Moshe Hillel describes the history of the forgery of this Torah scroll and thus explains all the doubts raised concerning it.

בראשית — The first verses of the Torah scroll attributed to the Ran

So where did it come from?

If it wasn’t owned or written by the Ran in Spain, then where is this scroll from and whose was it?

According to Moshe Hillel, the Torah scroll appears to have come from Morocco. The Moroccan Jewish community was in possession of antique Torah scrolls, some of them were even made before the expulsion from Spain, which Jews fleeing the Inquisition brought with them. In 1810-1910, some Moroccan Jews immigrated to Brazil, bringing along with them a number of Torah scrolls and settling in the region of the Amazon.

The emissary from Tiberias, Yahya Dahan, may have come to Brazil and returned with an old Torah scroll. But since the attribution to the Ran is false, it is also possible that the scroll never even passed through Brazil but rather arrived directly from Morocco to the Land of Israel, after which a whole story was stitched together to make its provenance sound greater than it was.

Others believe that the scroll may have originated in the Land of Israel or even Turkey.

20240925 085409 — The portion of *Bereshit* in the Torah scroll attributed to the Ran

If the Torah scroll had indeed been written by an important Torah scholar such as the Ran, we could have learned much from it on the customs of writing holy Hebrew texts in Medieval Spain. And indeed, Rabbis and scholars tried to do just that in a number of articles. While the scroll does seem to be quite old, it is unfortunately not “old enough,” and what we can learn from its writing is unrelated to the Ran or to the Jews of Spain. The scroll certainly served some Jewish community for many years, and perhaps we do need to remember it – as a historic document of the lives of Sephardic Jews is some other location.

The Zohar, in relation to the Torah portion of Naso, says “Everything depends on luck, even a Torah scroll in the Holy Ark.” So yes, even Torah scrolls need a little luck. There are Torah scrolls that sit unused in the ark of a synagogue for a whole year and are only brought out to be danced with on the festival of Simchat Torah. Other scrolls, the luckier ones, have the privilege of being used several times a week.

This famous Torah scroll that was once attributed to the Ran has experienced varying luck over the centuries. Once a holy relic associated with one of the great leaders and sages of 14^th century Jewry, it is today linked to fraud and deceit. And perhaps here we have a final stroke of good fortune: Despite its dubious reputation, instead of being buried or hidden away like other Torah scrolls with problematic histories, it is preserved, maintained, and sometimes even put on display at the National Library of Israel.

Upon a Pink Cloud: Remembering Inbar Haiman

Graffiti art was Inbar’s thing, but her creativity was boundless. She was among those murdered at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023.

Hillel Kuttler | 13.11.24

Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project

Inbar Haiman, may her memory be a blessing

The keychain Inbar Haiman made as a gift for her college roommate, Naomi Goldstein, contained standard elements, like a part-metal/part-thread chain. At the chain’s end lay a lime-green plastic knob that Haiman likely had pressed hundreds of times to make art. It was a nozzle from a spray-paint canister, the preferred tool of her trade. Haiman used spray paint to decorate items she found, like parts of discarded toys, then recycled them into art she sold as picture frames or earrings or keychains.

Keychain Inbar Made For Her Roommate Naomi Goldstein Photo By Naomi Goldstein — A keychain Inbar made for her roommate Naomi Goldstein (photo by Naomi Goldstein)

Haiman utilized spray-paint cans more conventionally, too, if such an adverb could apply to graffiti art. The genre appealed to Haiman because, as she told relatives and friends, it was accessible to everyone outdoors in the public domain, not only those paying to enter a museum.

Haiman also was “excited about the risk” of creating graffiti on public property, Goldstein said. “She liked that with graffiti, you could be appreciated and anonymous at the same time.”

Inbar2 — Inbar Haiman, doing what she loved. Photo courtesy of the Haiman family

Haiman dubbed herself “Pink Question,” for her favorite color and her curiosity — a moniker she shortened to “Pink.” That’s how she remains known. Haiman, 27, was one of at least 364 people whom Hamas murdered in its October 7, 2023, rampage at the Nova music festival at Kibbutz Reim, part of the Gaza Strip-based terrorist group’s day-long massacre of 1,200 people in Israel’s northwest Negev. The terrorists kidnapped her body and still hold it captive.

Friends Sign Near Petach Tikva Photo By Naomi Goldstein — A sign made by Haiman’s friends near Petah Tikva (photo by Naomi Goldstein)

Haiman’s loved ones continue lobbying in Israel and overseas for her repatriation. Their efforts include spreading the message in a manner she’d likely have appreciated. It’s there — Free Pink, the graffiti reads in English — on boulders alongside Israel Railways tracks in the country’s north. On a highway wall, in English and Hebrew lettering, on Rte. 471 not far from Haiman’s parents’ home in Petah Tikva. Between shop entrances on Haifa’s busy HaAtzmaut Street, is a message apparently painted by her classmates at the WIZO Haifa Academy of Design and Education: RIP Pink: Rest in Paint. And plenty more places.

Art, in part, is what sent Haiman to the fateful festival. She brought at least three of her paintings to try to sell there. Goldstein and Haiman’s mother, Ifat, don’t know whether she succeeded or even if the works survived the massacre. Haiman also was drawn to Nova by the music and the dancing — and the chance to lend a hand. She was hired to work there as a “helper”: someone assisting those who weren’t feeling well, including those attendees who’d drunk, smoked or inhaled too much.

“She loved people without judgment. She touched so many people. She helped people,” said Ifat. Haiman once calmed a suicidal peer. While studying at WIZO, she volunteered at a Haifa high school, leading workshops in graffiti art and creative writing. While in the army, Haiman organized an open-microphone poetry night in Jerusalem for teenagers; it’s where she and Goldstein met.

“Inbar lived art every day,” Goldstein said.

WIZO lecturer Yael Barnea Givoni was impressed by Haiman’s final project in her second year. The assignment called for telling a five-part story in three dimensions. Haiman fashioned a five-member family out of spray-paint cans, buttons and other materials, using bright colors for their bodies and creative cuts of the metal for teeth to fashion distinct characteristics in a clan of what Barnea Givoni called “nice monsters.”

Inbar Hymans Class Project With Teacher Yael Barnea Givoni — Inbar Haiman’s class project with teacher Yael Barnea Givoni

The project elicited Haiman’s “imagination and wildness,” she said. “She wasn’t tame. She was daring.”

Ifat remembers that her daughter began doing graffiti art with friends at about age 15. A few years later, she painted a pink question mark on a wall near home. Even in Haifa, she’d do graffiti late at night — alone or bringing someone along as a lookout. “It was a form of rebellion, of course,” Ifat said.

Inbar3 — Inbar Haiman painting graffiti. Photo courtesy of the Haiman family

Haiman was preparing for a career in artistic branding, such as for a hi-tech company, Ifat said. Haiman and her boyfriend and WIZO classmate, Noam Allon, spoke of opening an art studio. The couple discussed marriage. Following Haiman’s murder, Allon dropped out of college and is travelling abroad.

Ifat misses her deep conversations with Haiman. They’d go for coffee, put down their phones and would “sit and talk and open our hearts,” Ifat said. “She wasn’t only my daughter. She was my friend. She told me her secrets. I’d sometimes reveal, too. That wasn’t to be taken for granted. We’d discuss everything.”

But Ifat didn’t know much about her daughter’s art until after Haiman’s death, when WIZO classmates brought her paintings and creations from Haifa. Some of it has since been displayed throughout Israel and even at the United Nations. Several students at WIZO — and at Ariel University and the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design — dedicated their graduate projects in Haiman’s memory.

“It brings attention to her, and brings back her light,” said Ifat. “It strengthens me.”

Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler can be reached at [email protected].

More Than a Thousand Words: Hannah Senesh’s Photographs

Hannah Senesh had a poetic view of the world, as reflected in her own words – her poems, diaries and other writings. But the young paratrooper also left behind another, less well-known viewpoint, as documented through the lens of her camera.

Tamar Lewinsohn | 07.11.24

Archives Hannah Senesh History of Israel Photographs היסטוריה ישראלית

Hannah Senesh at age sixteen, and her camera which is today preserved in the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel and made accessible courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen.

“Aniko, the serious writer, writing her famous novel.” The inscription behind the black and white photograph is handwritten, easily recognizable from countless other texts written by this young woman – poems, personal notes, diaries and more.

The young woman in the picture, who also wrote the inscription, is “Aniko” herself, better known by her Hebrew name: Hannah Senesh (Szenes). It’s Christmas, 1936. Senesh is pictured in her family home in Budapest. She is sitting at a desk, looking directly at the camera, before her is a notebook and she holds a pen in her hand. Beside her is a picture of her father, the acclaimed writer and playwright, Béla Senesh, whom she lost when she was only six years old.

עיצוב ללא שם — Hannah Senesh sitting at her desk. From the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen

Béla Senesh, like his daughter, wrote quite a lot of material during his short lifespan, including stories for children, first read to little Hannah and her brother Giora (George). When Hannah was only five years old, she began to follow in her father’s footsteps and started to write.

At a later age she wrote about him:

“There are stars whose light reaches the earth only after they themselves have disintegrated and are no more.

And there are people whose scintillating memory lights the world after they have passed from it.

These lights which shine in the darkest night – are those which illumine for us the path.”

(Translator unknown)

But along with the notebooks, diaries, writing instruments and the typewriter, the “tools of the trade” that we typically associate with a poet, Hannah also had a camera. This creative young woman, the Zionist who dreamed of making an impact and being remembered, left her stamp in more than one way.

In 2022, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen, Hannah Senesh’s archive was deposited in the National Library of Israel as part of the Senesh Family Archive. In addition to manuscripts there are also family photos and many photographs that Senesh took herself – in Hungary on family vacations, and after her aliyah to the Land of Israel. Sometimes she wrote on the back of the photograph, other times the photographs were attached to a letter sent to her mother or brother Giora. The archive also contains Hannah’s camera, an Agfa Box-Spezial Camera in a small leather box lined with blue fabric, her name on it in her own handwriting.

Hannah Senesh’s camera, today preserved in the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen

Some of the photos are arranged in albums organized and kept by Senesh, some with typewritten captions. “Now I will go to sort out my photographs and reproductions. This activity gives me great pleasure,” she wrote in her diary, (excerpt from Diaries, Poems, Testimonies by Hannah Senesh). Senesh had a collection of postcards and artwork reproductions which are also part of the archive.

The albums are evidence of an imaginative young woman who viewed the world as a poet, with a strong desire to preserve, remember and remind.

“I am writing now from San Pellegrino, sitting on grass, with mountains in front of me and behind me. A stream winds through the valley, a wonderful mix of emotions and images. I’ve taken in so many impressions… I am trying to write everything down, to save the memories of these two days as a keepsake.”
(Excerpt from “Diaries, Poems, Testimonies“)

In the summer of 1937, 16-year-old Senesh travels by train to Italy equipped with a camera. The purpose of the trip is to meet her relatives in Menaggio near Lake Como. On the way she also visits Milan, Venice, and San Pellegrino. “I am full of curiosity and have a camera in my hand,” she writes in her diary.

Dedupmrg843650014 Ie207645980 Fl207645987 — Hannah Senesh on vacation in Italy. From the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen

After a visit to the Duomo in Milan, she writes in her diary about the experience, and her photographs of the cathedral fill some two pages in her photo album:

“I’d heard a lot about it, and I even saw a picture…as if I saw it in my mind’s eye. Nevertheless, as I now stood at the edge of its vast square, in front of the towering building in all its glory, I looked in awe, breathless, at the whole church as a work of imagination. I started walking towards it, and entered through the bronze gate with its inlaid reliefs. At the first moment, I noticed in the gloom only the outlines of the giant columns… Slowly my eyes were drawn to the Gothic vaults and the capitals of the columns crowned with statues. The vast dimensions contain human destinies, whose hopes, torments and dreams were cast in these columns.”

997012426170505171 0011 — Pictures of Milan from Hannah Senesh’s photograph album, 1937. From the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen

In 1938, she writes about winning a prize in a school photography competition: “3 films. That’s second prize.” (Excerpt from Diaries, Poems, Testimonies). In March of that year, Senesh is disturbed by the situation prevailing in Europe. She writes in her diary for the first time about political events and describes the occupation of Austria by Hitler. During this year, Senesh declares in her diary that she is a Zionist.

A year later, in March 1939, she is no longer interested in anything but Zionism. “I would not be exaggerating if I write that the only thing by which I live and which occupies me completely is Zionism… I now take upon myself the right to see only ourselves, Judaism, the Land of Israel and its future. The situation is very serious.”

It is Senesh’s last year at school and final exams are approaching. She writes “I hardly pay attention to them and I don’t prepare”. During this period, she writes a letter in Hebrew to Hannah Maisel-Shohat, the director of the agricultural school for young women in Nahalal. She longs to immigrate to Israel and help build the Jewish settlement, “May they accept me!” she writes in her diary.

And she was indeed accepted. Immediately after her 18th birthday, Senesh received the long-awaited certificate. She said goodbye to her mother and set off alone, two days by train and five more days by ship: “I finally arrived home to Eretz Yisrael”.

Dedupmrg842957468 Ie207596159 Fl207596172 — Hannah Senesh on the day of her arrival at Haifa port. From the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen.

She first came to Haifa and then to the Jezreel Valley, to Nahalal, where she worked in the laundry, dairy, kitchen, and produce warehouse sorting grapefruit. She studied Hebrew and agriculture, developed friendships, and even went on trips — along with her camera.

In Senesh’s many correspondences with her mother Katarina, who remained in Hungary, she asked her to send some basic supplies: “Regarding my other requests, I am really very well equipped, and I don’t know what other things I need. Soon, I will run out of soap, toothpaste, film. Could you send me that? (Excerpt from Only You Will Understand by Hannah Senesh)

At Nahalal, Hannah and her camera were inseparable. “Today I had an impressive success with photography. A few girls who were excited about the Nahalal photos bought film and asked me to photograph them. All eight photos turned out very well. Now everyone wants me to photograph them, as if they’ve appointed me the court photographer.” (Excerpt from Only You Will Understand)

Dedupmrg843682837 Ie207619148 Fl207619155 — Hannah Senesh on a trip with her friends from Nahalal. From the Senesh Family Archive at the National Library of Israel, courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen.

Senesh continues her journey in the Land of Israel. She is seeking a kibbutz that suits her mindset, and finally arrives at Sdot-Yam, where she stays until enlisting in the British Army and departing on the mission from which she will not return. She no longer photographs. She reflects on the past, writing, “I’m afraid to look into the depths of the abyss” (Excerpt from Diaries, Poems, Testimonies).

“Only one image draws me back into the past – mother at the train station. Four years. I never believed that the chasm separating us would be so wide.”

The Senesh Family Archive is today deposited at the National Library of Israel and has been made accessible courtesy of Ori and Mirit Eisen.

90 Years Late: A Decorated Jewish General’s Book Arrives at the Library!

After a "slight" delay, the National Library of Israel has finally received a book of war correspondence written by the most famous and senior Jewish officer to serve in WWI. Who was Sir John Monash? And what happened to this particular book since it was dedicated to the NLI back in 1935? We set out to find answers…

Daniel Lipson | 05.11.24

British Mandate Rare Books World War I היסטוריה ישראלית מלחמת העולם הראשונה

On an April day in 2024, a suspicious package arrived at the security department of the Australian branch of a well-known international investment firm. The messenger was a dubious individual, known to the security officer as someone who often harassed the company’s CEO. Company policy in such cases was usually to destroy the package, but the security officer noticed that in this case the package was simply a book – so he opened it.

After a quick glance at the book, the security officer contacted the National Library of Israel directly. In correspondence with me, he explained that he understood from the dedication in the beginning of the book that it was supposed to have been sent to us many years ago. Following some more back and forth and technical matters of shipping and handling, the book was received by the Library this past September.

The book in question is War Letters of General Monash, a collection of published letters written by Sir John Monash, an Australian general who served in the First World War. Monash was the most senior Jewish commander of the war in any of the belligerent nations.

שער הספר — The copy of *War Letters of John Monash*, which just recently reached the National Library of Israel

Monash wrote the book’s letters mostly to his wife and daughter, detailing the important historical events in which he took part from December 1914 to December 1918. The book starts with his departure from Australia and his voyage to Egypt, where he led the 4^th Brigade. He goes on to tell of how after a few months in Egypt, the brigade left to take part in the Gallipoli campaign. Following a defensive mission along the Suez Canal, the brigade sailed to France to fight on European soil. From there, Monash sailed to England, taking command of the Australian 3^rd Division. He spent most of 1917 and 1918 in France, commanding forces in some of the most decisive battles of the war. In May 1918, he was promoted in rank and made commander of all Australian forces on the Western Front.

20241009 132230 — Australian soldiers in the area of the northern Belgian city of Ypres, 1917

Meet John Monash: Engineer and Decorated General

John Monash was born in 1865 to Jewish parents who immigrated from Germany. He studied engineering at the University of Melbourne and joined the university’s military unit. Following his studies, he went on to have a civilian career in engineering, while also moving up the ranks in the army. He specialized in working with concrete and building bridges and rail lines. In the military, he commanded an artillery battery and later moved on to serve in an intelligence role. A year before the outbreak of WWI, he received command of an infantry brigade.

During the war, Monash demonstrated his command skills, standing out for his creative thinking and his ability to plan matters down to the smallest details. Many are familiar with the difficult descriptions of what this war was like – rows of soldiers emerging from trenches and charging towards the enemy, only to be cut down by machine gun fire. In the face of this grim reality, Monash placed an emphasis on the importance of combining different kinds of weaponry – tanks, planes, mortars – to help the infantry soldiers achieve their objectives safely, rather than sending them to their deaths in pointless and ineffective missions. He truly cared for his soldiers.

350px John Monash Portrait 1918 — General Sir John Monash, 1918

Monash was greatly respected for his military skills, and some believe that if the war had lasted longer, he would have ended up in command of the entire British Army in Europe.

Monash died in 1931 from a heart attack at the age of 66. Following a funeral attended by throngs of people, he was buried in the Jewish lot of the Melbourne cemetery. His wife had died 11 years before, and only his daughter, Bertha Bennett, survived him.

General Monash and the National Library of Israel

Today, we know that it was Bertha who donated that copy of War Letters of General Monash to the National Library in 1935, the same book which somehow ended up at the Australian offices of an international investment company. Bertha wrote a dedication at the beginning of the book, which reads: “to the Jewish National and University Library in memory of my later father, General Sir John Monash – a Jew, who commanded the Australian Army Corps in the Great War.”

But for some reason, the book never left Australia – until now.

Even before Bertha’s donation, which was ultimately delayed for almost a century, other donations made by Monash himself reached the Library long before, even opening up a separate saga in and of themselves:

Here’s how it all unfolded.

We shall begin by briefly shedding some light on another interesting figure from the past:

Abraham Schwadron (Sharon) was born in Galicia in 1878. He was a thinker, writer, musician, and recipient of three doctorates from the University of Vienna. Schwadron made Aliyah to Mandatory Palestine in 1927, where he primarily worked on his collection of portraits and photographs. For decades, Schwadron requested and received letters, postcards, and other documents written or at least signed by important figures, especially from the Jewish world. He also collected pictures and portraits of famous people from across the globe. He donated it all to the National Library, where he worked for many years. In 1920, Schwadron published an item in the British newspaper The Jewish Chronicle, announcing that he was collecting portraits, letters and souvenirs of famous Jews around the world and that he was requesting the readers’ assistance in expanding his collection.

Scwad Jc 19 Nov 1920 — Schwadron’s request for help in expanding his collection, *The Jewish Chronicle*, November 1920

Monash saw the request in the paper, and in September 1921, he sent Schwadron a postcard with a self-portrait and his signature. In an attached letter, Monash added that “It will doubtless be known to you [Schwadron, D.L.] that I was in supreme command of the Australian Army in France in 1918. I am well acquainted with Sir Herbert Samuel, the High Commissioner in Palestine, and with his legal adviser Mr. Norman Bentwitch.” The letter and the postcard were entered into the Schwadron Collection at the National Library.

מכתב ותמונה — Letter and postcard sent by Monash to Schwadron in 1921

Eight years later, in May 1929, Monash sent his book, The Australian Victories in France in 1918, to the National Library. The book, which he wrote two years after the war, describes the battles of the Australian soldiers in the war’s final year. It includes photographs, maps, and an appendix including battle orders and logistical instructions on the battlefield. Monash attached a brief letter addressed “To the Jewish National and University Library” in which he described his donation as a humble contribution to its literature of the Great War, which he said “brought freedom to the Jewish People in Palestine.”

The book’s inner cover contains a label in memory of Rose and Barnett Altson. This family lived in Australia, but their connection to Monash is unclear. Monash seemingly got his hands on a copy owned by the family, which he decided to send to the National Library. My efforts to find a connection via our genealogical staff between the two families came up empty.

Letter And Book — Monash’s dedication in the Altson family copy of his book (according to the label on the left)

Pleading for Help

A year later, Schwadron wrote a long letter to Monash in Australia. He thanked him for the postcard and the book and provided a detailed picture of the situation in the Land of Israel. He noted that he belonged to no political party, but that as a concerned Jew, he felt compelled to correct Monash’s mistaken words regarding the freedom of the Jews in Palestine.

According to him, the British Mandatory government had spent the past 11 years doing everything it could to make the Land of Israel a very unfree place for the Jewish People. Schwadron wrote that the Mandate authorities supported the local Arab residents, who were responsible for the pogroms launched against the Jews of the country. He argued that 95% of the British officials were anti-Zionists and were causing great dismay for the many Jews who had left their lives and families in Europe following the Balfour Declaration to build up the Land of Israel through hard work and toil, in hopes of a better future. Schwadron brought examples of the unfairness of the British government towards the Jewish population, including the relatively low taxes paid by Arabs compared to Jews.

Schwadron may have hoped that Monash could use his influence and contacts to help his brethren in the Land of Israel.

Three months after Schwadron sent his letter, Monash responded with a letter of his own, noting that he was disappointed and surprised at Schwadron’s criticism of the British Mandatory government. Monash expressed no opinion regarding Schwadron’s accusations, explaining that he would study the situation from additional sources. He added that he was a very busy man and that although he was very interested in “communal matters,” he didn’t have time to deal with the subject. He thanked Schwadron for the information regarding the Mandate’s activity, information which had not even come to his attention.

Monash To Schwadron — Monash’s response to Schwadron, June 1930

But Schwadron did not give up, and he wrote another letter to Monash in August of that year. Schwadron explained that after studying the material, he was certain that Monash would help bring about a significant change of the situation in the country. Schwadron updated Monash on the deterioration of the situation since his previous letter, mentioning the Shaw Commission which investigated the 1929 Arab Riots, the limitation of Aliyah, the White Paper, the preference shown for hiring Arabs in government positions (Arabs made up 94% of the non-British civil service in the country), lack of aid to Jewish farmers and the antisemitic statements of the Mufti of Jerusalem.

Schwadron ended his letter with a question: “How will a national home arise when those charged with its establishment are openly or covertly violent?” If there was a response to this letter, it is not in our possession. Monash probably did not have the time to deal with Schwadron’s complaints.

General Monash was widely respected in Australia, and was commemorated in a variety of ways following his death in 1931. His name adorns a university, a medical center, a highway, and a municipality. In Israel, the agricultural community known as Kfar Monash in the Hefer Valley was named after him. Monash has been the subject of multiple biographies, which include discussion of his victories in World War I and his contribution to Australia’s development.

The copy of Monash’s collection of letters which his daughter dedicated to the National Library was not the first to reach us – we already had a few copies. But now we have a particularly special one, a copy dedicated by his daughter.

Bertha apparently never got around to actually sending the book to Jerusalem, and it appears to have wandered across Australia before reaching the offices of the investment firm – a truly strange story, the details of which we may never know. What ultimately matters is that the book finally reached its destination, and is now on the shelves of the National Library in Jerusalem.