The Israel Museum purchased a rare manuscript in the Sassoon Collection for $430,000 Tuesday, largely due to the efforts of Mayor Teddy Kollek. The manuscript went up for sale at a public auction in Zurich. “We have purchased the most famous Pentateuch of the Sassoon Collection,” said Kollek, who led a personal 48-hour telephone campaign with Jewish leaders throughout the world in order to raise the money. The 840-page manuscript is the “Pentateuch de Castro,” written in Germany in the late 14th Century. David Solomon Sassoon bought it in Amsterdam in 1899.
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