A Torah scroll from the synagogue in the northern Italian town of Biella has been identified as probably the oldest in the world that is still owned and used by a Jewish community.
Dario Disegni, the president of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Italy, said that Carbon 14 dating carried out by the Geochronology Laboratory of the University of Illinois put the date of the scroll at around 1250.
The scroll, which since 2012 had undergone restoration on behalf of the foundation by an Italian scribe, will be returned to the Biella synagogue at a ceremony on March 13.
It is not rare to find extremely old Torah scrolls, the scribe, Amedeo Spagnoletto, told Italian Jewish media.
“But in this case the scroll has remained completely intact, without a single piece of parchment substituted, from 1250 until today,” he said. — jta