Yemenite Taj Text • Teacher: George Lederer
Student Curator: Gilad L

Yemenite Taj Text Paper

This Taj text belonged to my grandfather, and it was handed down to my father.  Yemenite Jews call the Hebrew Bible the Taj, which means crown. It is a Yemenite Torah text in book form that contains the words of the Torah and Targum Onkelos.  The Taj also contains the Yemenite cantilation symbols so that people can use it to study how to correctly chant from a Torah scroll.  In a Yemenite synagogue, the Torah text is chanted verse by verse with the Aramaic Targum Onkelos read out loud after each Hebrew verse. Many scholars consider the Yemenite Hebrew pronunciation to be the most accurate form of Biblical Hebrew.