Editing Aleppo Codex (section)

===Loss of pages (1947–1958)===
[[File:Aleppo Deut 1910 Photo.jpg|thumb|250px|Photograph of missing page<ref>Photo taken in 1910 by Joseph Segall and published in Travels through Northern Syria (London, 1910), p. 99. Reprinted and analyzed in [http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/upload/_FILE_1371645202.pdf Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein, "A Recovered Part of the Aleppo Codex," Textus 5 (1966):53-59 (Plate I)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304031249/http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/upload/_FILE_1371645202.pdf |date=2016-03-04 }}</ref>]]
During the [[1947 Anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo]], the community's ancient synagogue was burned. Later, while the Codex was in Israel, it was found that no more than 294 of the original (estimated) 487 pages survived.<ref name=Pfeffer>{{cite news |title= Fragment of Ancient Parchment From Bible Given to Jerusalem Scholars |author= Anshel Pfeffer |date= November 6, 2007 |url= https://www.haaretz.com/1.4995266}}</ref><ref name="Tawil">Hayim Tawil & Bernard Schneider, ''Crown of Aleppo'' (Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Soc., 2010) page 110; there have been various reports and estimates of the original number of pages; Izhak Ben-Zvi, "The Codex of Ben Asher", ''Textus,'' vol. 1 (1960) page 2, reprinted in Sid Z. Leiman, ed., ''The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible, an Introductory Reader'' (NY, [[KTAV Publishing House]], 1974) page 758 (estimating an original number of 380 pages).</ref>

The missing leaves are a subject of fierce controversy. Initially, it was thought they were destroyed by fire, but scholarly analysis has shown no evidence of fire having reached the codex itself (the dark marks on the pages are due to fungus).<ref name=Pfeffer/> Some scholars instead accuse Jewish community members of having torn off the missing leaves and kept them privately hidden. Two missing portions of the manuscript—a single complete leaf from the [[Book of Chronicles]] and a fragment of a page from the [[Book of Exodus]]—were turned up from such sources in the 1980s, leaving open the possibility that even more may have survived the riots in 1947.<ref name=Friedman>{{cite book|last=Friedman|first=Matti|title=[[The Aleppo Codex]]|publisher=Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill|year=2012}}</ref><ref name=holy>{{cite news |author=Ronen Bergman |author-link=Ronen Bergman |title= A High Holy Whodunit |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/magazine/the-aleppo-codex-mystery.html?pagewanted=all |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date= July 25, 2012 |access-date= 2012-07-26 }}</ref> In particular, the 2012 book ''The Aleppo Codex'' by [[Matti Friedman]] calls attention to the fact that eyewitnesses in Aleppo who saw the Codex shortly after the fire consistently reported that it was complete or nearly complete, and then there is no account of it for more than a decade, until after it arrived in Israel and was put, in 1958, in the Ben-Zvi Institute, at which point it was as currently described; his book suggests several possibilities for the loss of the pages including theft in Israel.<ref name=FriedmanChap24>Friedman (2012) ch. 24 and ''passim''.</ref>

[[Documentary film]]maker Avi Dabach, great-grandson of [[Hacham]] Ezra Dabach (one of the last caretakers of the Codex when it was still in Syria), announced in December 2015 an upcoming film tracing the history of the Codex and possibly determining the fate of the missing pages.<ref>{{cite news |last1= Maltz |first1= Judy |title= My Great-grandfather, the Man Who Held the Key to the Aleppo Codex |url= http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.693328 |website= Haaretz |access-date=24 December 2015}}</ref> The film, titled ''{{Interlanguage link|The Lost Crown (documentary)|lt=The Lost Crown|he|הכתר האבוד}}'', was released in 2018.<ref>{{Cite web |title=הכתר האבוד • קטלוג הקולנוע הדוקומנטרי הישראלי |url=https://docs.org.il/movie/%D7%94%D7%9B%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%94%D7%90%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93/ |access-date=2023-12-06 |website=קטלוג הקולנוע הדוקומנטרי הישראלי |language=he-IL}}</ref>