Forty-five avid supporters of this exhibition and of Project Judaica Foundation traveled to Vatican City for the opening ceremonies which included a private tour of the Vatican Library and gardens, and a tour of the Sistine Chapel by Father Leonard Boyle, head of the Vatican Library.
In attendance at the opening ceremony were 18 Cardinals, including the Cardinal Sodanno, the Vatican's Secretary of State, 28 Archbishops of the Vatican Curiae, and the Israeli Minister of Education and Culture. This event marked the debut of Israel's first ever ambassador to the Vatican. It is estimated that approximately 18,000 people saw the exhibition each day!
Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Osher of San Francisco, California, for their generous support of the exhibition from its inception, and for their support at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the San Francisco de Young Museum of Fine Arts, and the Vatican's unique Salano Sistine adjacent to the Sistine Chapel. The advent of the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition allowed each of these sites to exhibit related materials from its own collection. In the case of the Vatican, Torahs from the first millennium were displayed for the very first time.
Remarkably, this entire Vatican related exhibition has now been designated to open for further display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem