In the Middle Ages and modern period, “local Purims” were established in various communities throughout the Diaspora to celebrate divine deliverance from a looming threat. Like the biblical Purim, these were often marked by feasting and sometimes also by the public reading of a text recounting the events.
The Scroll of “Saragossa”—Saragusa is the Sicilian name for Syracuse, Sicily—is one such text. It tells of a certain King Saragossanos, who ruled a population of about five thousand adult Jewish males, divided into twelve communities. The practice of these communities was to greet the king every time he came to the Jewish market/street with three lavishly adorned Torah scrolls from each synagogue, for a total of thirty-six scrolls. One day, the leaders gathered and decided that it did not befit the sanctity of the Torah scrolls to use them in greeting an idolatrous king; henceforth, therefore, when he would come to their quarter, they would greet him with tikim (Torah cases) emptied of their scrolls. The ruse worked until an apostate, Hayyim Shami (Christian name: Marcos), informed on the Jews to the king, infuriating him. The next day, 17 Shevat 5180 (February 11, 1420), the king surprised the community by showing up unannounced and demanding that the Torah scrolls be opened for him. Luckily, the night before, the Prophet Elijah had appeared to the sextons of all twelve communities, telling them to fill the tikim with Torah scrolls, so that when they were opened for King Saragossanos he saw the text of Leviticus 26:44: “Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling My covenant with them: for I the Lord am their God.” Thereafter, the king blessed the Jews, abated their taxes for three years, and had Marcos hanged. The Jews of Saragossanos/Saragossa accepted upon themselves to observe 17 Shevat every year as a local Purim, complete with the sending of food portions (mishloah manot) to friends and the giving of gifts to the poor.
While scholars debate the historicity of these events, there is no doubt that Jews of Sicilian and/or Sephardic descent in various Balkan, North African, and Middle Eastern communities (e.g., Milazzo, Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Constantinople, Magnesia, Aydin, Smyrna, Tunis, and Jerusalem) were observing a version of this holiday into the twentieth century. The text of the Scroll of Saragossa survives today in probably fewer than twenty manuscript copies, dating from about the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. (It was printed for the first time in Jerusalem in 1872.) The present exemplar was, by David Solomon Sassoon’s account, “copied in the Holy City of Jerusalem—may it be rebuilt and reestablished soon, in our days, amen.” This was apparently done on commission, as Sassoon made three payments for the scroll on March 2, March 30, and April 9, 1922.
Physical DescriptionScroll (4 3/8 x approx. 53 in.; 111 x approx. 1340 mm) on parchment; text written in Eastern square script in black ink; arranged in 10 columns with 15 lines to a column on 2 membranes stitched together. Very minor scattered staining on verso; some corrections of text. Narrow parchment strip used for wrapping stitched to rounded outer edge of membrane 1; paper ticket with shelf mark affixed to verso of membrane 1.
LiteratureAnon., “Megillat yehudei saragossa,” Ha-safranim (March 18, 2022), available at: https://blog.nli.org.il/sodot-saragosa/.
Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 279-287.
Ephraim Nissan, “Purim of Saragossa, Purim of Siracusa,” Mediaeval Sophia 10 (July-December 2011): 213-221.
Chaya Sara Oppenheim, “A Second Purim Story,” Tablet Magazine (March 2, 2023), available at: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/holidays/articles/second-purim-megillat-saragossa.
Cecil Roth, “Le-toledot golei sitsilyah,” Eretz-Israel 3 (1954): 230-234, 266, at p. 233.
Aaron Rubin and Lily Kahn, “Empty Torah Cases and ‘Little Purims’,” Jewish Review of Books (March 5, 2020), available at: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/6727/empty-torah-cases-and-little-purims/.
David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 1 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 564-565 (no. 551).
David Simonsen, “Le Pourim de Saragosse est un Pourim de Syracuse,” Revue des études juives 59 (117) (January-March 1910): 90-95.
https://opensiddur.org/readings-and-sourcetexts/festival-and-fast-day-readings/jewish-readings/purim-sheni-readings/megillat-saragossa/
In the Middle Ages and modern period, “local Purims” were established in various communities throughout the Diaspora to celebrate divine deliverance from a looming threat. Like the biblical Purim, these were often marked by feasting and sometimes also by the public reading of a text recounting the events.
The Scroll of “Saragossa”—Saragusa is the Sicilian name for Syracuse, Sicily—is one such text. It tells of a certain King Saragossanos, who ruled a population of about five thousand adult Jewish males, divided into twelve communities. The practice of these communities was to greet the king every time he came to the Jewish market/street with three lavishly adorned Torah scrolls from each synagogue, for a total of thirty-six scrolls. One day, the leaders gathered and decided that it did not befit the sanctity of the Torah scrolls to use them in greeting an idolatrous king; henceforth, therefore, when he would come to their quarter, they would greet him with tikim (Torah cases) emptied of their scrolls. The ruse worked until an apostate, Hayyim Shami (Christian name: Marcos), informed on the Jews to the king, infuriating him. The next day, 17 Shevat 5180 (February 11, 1420), the king surprised the community by showing up unannounced and demanding that the Torah scrolls be opened for him. Luckily, the night before, the Prophet Elijah had appeared to the sextons of all twelve communities, telling them to fill the tikim with Torah scrolls, so that when they were opened for King Saragossanos he saw the text of Leviticus 26:44: “Yet, even then, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or spurn them so as to destroy them, annulling My covenant with them: for I the Lord am their God.” Thereafter, the king blessed the Jews, abated their taxes for three years, and had Marcos hanged. The Jews of Saragossanos/Saragossa accepted upon themselves to observe 17 Shevat every year as a local Purim, complete with the sending of food portions (mishloah manot) to friends and the giving of gifts to the poor.
While scholars debate the historicity of these events, there is no doubt that Jews of Sicilian and/or Sephardic descent in various Balkan, North African, and Middle Eastern communities (e.g., Milazzo, Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Constantinople, Magnesia, Aydin, Smyrna, Tunis, and Jerusalem) were observing a version of this holiday into the twentieth century. The text of the Scroll of Saragossa survives today in probably fewer than twenty manuscript copies, dating from about the seventeenth through twentieth centuries. (It was printed for the first time in Jerusalem in 1872.) The present exemplar was, by David Solomon Sassoon’s account, “copied in the Holy City of Jerusalem—may it be rebuilt and reestablished soon, in our days, amen.” This was apparently done on commission, as Sassoon made three payments for the scroll on March 2, March 30, and April 9, 1922.
Physical DescriptionScroll (4 3/8 x approx. 53 in.; 111 x approx. 1340 mm) on parchment; text written in Eastern square script in black ink; arranged in 10 columns with 15 lines to a column on 2 membranes stitched together. Very minor scattered staining on verso; some corrections of text. Narrow parchment strip used for wrapping stitched to rounded outer edge of membrane 1; paper ticket with shelf mark affixed to verso of membrane 1.
LiteratureAnon., “Megillat yehudei saragossa,” Ha-safranim (March 18, 2022), available at: https://blog.nli.org.il/sodot-saragosa/.
Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the legacy of Jewish violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 279-287.
Ephraim Nissan, “Purim of Saragossa, Purim of Siracusa,” Mediaeval Sophia 10 (July-December 2011): 213-221.
Chaya Sara Oppenheim, “A Second Purim Story,” Tablet Magazine (March 2, 2023), available at: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/holidays/articles/second-purim-megillat-saragossa.
Cecil Roth, “Le-toledot golei sitsilyah,” Eretz-Israel 3 (1954): 230-234, 266, at p. 233.
Aaron Rubin and Lily Kahn, “Empty Torah Cases and ‘Little Purims’,” Jewish Review of Books (March 5, 2020), available at: https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/6727/empty-torah-cases-and-little-purims/.
David Solomon Sassoon, Ohel Dawid: Descriptive Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the Sassoon Library, London, vol. 1 ([Oxford]: Oxford University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, 1932), 564-565 (no. 551).
David Simonsen, “Le Pourim de Saragosse est un Pourim de Syracuse,” Revue des études juives 59 (117) (January-March 1910): 90-95.
https://opensiddur.org/readings-and-sourcetexts/festival-and-fast-day-readings/jewish-readings/purim-sheni-readings/megillat-saragossa/
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