Episode 8: The Story and Discovery of the Oldest Hebrew Prayer Book with Osnat Gad and Herschel Hepler

• In 2016, Associate Curator Herschel Hepler came across an image online of a small prayer book that would change what we know about the history of Jewish books and Jewish heritage in Afghanistan. After years of research, this small book turned out to be the oldest Hebrew prayer book known today, dating back to AD 700, which once traveled the Silk Roads and was preserved in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan.  

  
  

In this episode, Osnat Gad, a Jewish jewelry designer who can trace her family heritage back to Afghanistan, and Hepler share how significant this find is and how it changed everything we knew about that region. 

 

• Guest Bio:

  • Osnat Gad, Jewelry Designer and Owner of OGI Ltd 
  • Herschel Hepler, Associate Curator of Hebrew manuscripts at Museum of the Bible 

 

• https://www.jtsa.edu 

• https://www.jtsa.edu/news/the-worlds-oldest-jewish-book-on-display-at-the-jewish-theological-seminary/ 

• “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes” By Anand Gopal 

• https://www.museumoftheBible.org/exhibits/alq  

 

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