Shapiro

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About the Play

Moses Wilhelm Shapira, a collector and antiquities dealer, was a baptized Jew who lived and worked in the heart of Old Jerusalem in the late 19th century.

In 1883, Shapira shocked the academic world with a remarkable offer—he proposed selling the British Museum in London a collection of biblical scrolls, allegedly discovered in ancient caves, yet remarkably well-preserved. These scrolls were considered the earliest known biblical manuscripts of the time. Shapira demanded an enormous sum—one million pounds sterling. The British Museum was on the verge of purchasing them when, at the last moment, several leading scholars questioned the authenticity of the scrolls.

Approximately 65 years later, in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea, scrolls strikingly similar to those of Shapira were discovered.

The story of Shapira’s scrolls is both mysterious and intriguing, narrated through the perspective of his daughter, Miriam Harry, a French writer and author of the famous book La Petite Fille de Jérusalem, as she seeks answers to painful questions, revisiting memories of a past life.

Beyond the detective-like intrigue of the ancient scrolls, this is also the deeply personal story of a Jewish man from the Russian Empire who strives to assimilate into European society and become a "true European." Yet, those around him continue to see him only as "a Jew, a fraud, and a scoundrel."

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