An Ancient Village Appears to Have Been a Center for the Production of Gazelle-Hide Torah Scrolls

Aug. 21 2018

The Talmud requires that Torah scrolls be written on parchment made from the hide of a kosher animal, and notes that the hides of gazelles were particularly prized for this purpose. Armed with this information, archaeologists made sense of a recent finding in the Galilean village of Shikhin (modern-day Shukha), as Philippe Bohstrom writes. (Free registration may be required.)

Archaeologists . . . encountered a mystery: a strangely large proportion of the animal bones [uncovered while excavating Shikhin] were from wild gazelles—far greater than the proportion of gazelle remains found at any other archaeological site in Israel, from [the era of the site]—about 1,900 years ago—or earlier. Or later. What was the strange predilection the ancient Jews of Shikhin had for gazelles?

Some were surely eating gazelle, which is perfectly kosher when slaughtered by [the prescribed] ritual. But the people of Shikhin also had plenty of domestic flocks: sheep, goats, and cows. It seems, the archaeologists concluded, that the Jews of Shikhin had developed a robust industry of curing gazelle hide for parchment, including for Torah scrolls. . . .

Even when compared with sites from the earlier Bronze Age and Iron Age, when people had been cultivating flocks for thousands of years but still hunted for some of their meat, the proportion of gazelle bones at Shikhin is big; [furthermore], gazelle run very fast, [and are therefore very difficult] to chase down. So appetite alone could hardly explain the spike in gazelle hunting.

The gazelle is indigenous to the region and was appreciated in ancient times not only for its speed but for its gracile beauty. The ancient Hebrews alluded to it frequently in Scripture.

Read more at Haaretz

More about: Ancient Israel, ancient Judaism, Animals, Archaeology, History & Ideas

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023