{"id":922,"date":"2008-09-09T16:22:10","date_gmt":"2008-09-09T16:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return.php"},"modified":"2008-09-09T16:22:10","modified_gmt":"2008-09-09T16:22:10","slug":"stolen-manuscript-to-be-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return","title":{"rendered":"Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press <\/strong><br \/>\nJerusalem &#8211; A 215-year-old Jewish manuscript stolen from a Tel Aviv library a decade ago will be returned by the German library where it surfaced, an Israeli official said Tuesday.<br \/>\nIsraeli Embassy officials are currently arranging the manuscript&#8217;s transfer from the German National Library in Berlin back to Israel, said Avigdor Levin, the top cultural official at the Tel Aviv municipality.<br \/>\nA 1998 inventory check at the city&#8217;s Rambam Library revealed that the one-of-a-kind manuscript was missing. Titled &#8220;The Book of the Levite&#8217;s Worship,&#8221; it was a treatise on Jewish law written by a Berlin rabbi in 1793.<br \/>\nThe police had no leads on the possible thief and closed the case, Levin said. A year after it disappeared the manuscript was offered at auction at Sotheby&#8217;s in New York for between $16,000 and $18,000 and was not purchased, but was later sold to an unidentified dealer and disappeared again before the Israelis could put their hands on it, he said.<br \/>\nThe manuscript was finally found thanks to a stroke of luck. In 2005, a manuscript specialist at Israel&#8217;s national library in Jerusalem received a copy of a book being held by the German National Library and realized it was the &#8220;Levite&#8217;s Worship.&#8221;<br \/>\nAfter a legal team established that it was indeed the missing book, the German library agreed to return it to Tel Aviv. Levin said the Germans displayed &#8220;a lot of good will.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;We are getting it back under the understanding that they held a stolen article without knowing. They thought returning it would be the right thing to do,&#8221; Levin said.<br \/>\nThe German National Library did not immediately comment Tuesday.<br \/>\nThe identity of the thief and of the dealers who bought and sold the manuscript remain unknown. &#8220;We&#8217;re not interested. We only want to see the book back here,&#8221; Levin said.<br \/>\nThe manuscript was among the most valuable of the some 200 held at the Rambam Library, said the library&#8217;s director, Avishai Elboim.<br \/>\n&#8220;We&#8217;re happy to be getting back something we&#8217;ve been seeking for so long,&#8221; Elboim said. &#8220;It&#8217;s very rare to get something like this back &#8211; usually they cross the border and then just disappear.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Jerusalem &#8211; A 215-year-old Jewish manuscript stolen from a Tel Aviv library a decade ago will be returned by the German library where it surfaced, an Israeli official said Tuesday. Israeli Embassy officials are currently arranging the manuscript&#8217;s transfer from the German National Library in Berlin back to Israel, said Avigdor Levin, the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Jerusalem &#8211; A 215-year-old Jewish manuscript stolen from a Tel Aviv library a decade ago will be returned by the German library where it surfaced, an Israeli official said Tuesday. Israeli Embassy officials are currently arranging the manuscript&#8217;s transfer from the German National Library in Berlin back to Israel, said Avigdor Levin, the&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-09T16:22:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library","og_description":"Associated Press Jerusalem &#8211; A 215-year-old Jewish manuscript stolen from a Tel Aviv library a decade ago will be returned by the German library where it surfaced, an Israeli official said Tuesday. Israeli Embassy officials are currently arranging the manuscript&#8217;s transfer from the German National Library in Berlin back to Israel, said Avigdor Levin, the&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-09-09T16:22:10+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return","name":"Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-09-09T16:22:10+00:00","dateModified":"2008-09-09T16:22:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/09\/stolen-manuscript-to-be-return#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Stolen Manuscript to Be Returned to Israel Library"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}