A 700-year-old Jewish prayer book from Germany, put up for sale by a French Jewish organization to support its finances, was auctioned for a staggering $ 8.3 million. Four buyers fought for the Luzzatto Mahzor prayer book, the value of which was estimated by experts at Sotheby’s New York auction house at $ 4-6 million. Sold to an anonymous private buyer, the prayer book comes from the collection of Alliance Israélite Universelle, a 160-year-old French Jewish organization that runs schools in Israel, France and Morocco. Alliance officials announced in the media that their organization, which runs an important Jewish library in Paris, as well as numerous Jewish schools, is facing an economic crisis. The sale of the prayer book will guarantee the library’s survival until 2030. It is worth recalling that so far only one Judaica has been auctioned for more. It was the Bomberg Talmud from the Valmadonna Collection, which in 2015 was sold for $ 9.3 million. An artifact from medieval Germany that circulated among various Jewish communities in Europe, Luzzatto Mahzor is handwritten in Hebrew and contains colorful illustrations of human bodies with animal heads.
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