Rabbi’s Car Stolen — With $30K Torah Scroll Inside
Thieves stole a Brooklyn rabbi’s car, with his synagogue’s $30,000 Torah scroll stashed in the trunk.
Luckily, the joy-riders were more interested in a free ride than religious edification, and never touched the holy book, which was found untouched when the car was recovered by cops, the New York Post reported.
“I cannot forgive myself. I was in shock. I felt as if somebody died, as if a house burned,” Rabbi Binyamin Tamaiev told the paper. “How could someone go into a holy place, steal keys and a car?”
The caper unfolded Rabbi Binyamin Tamaiev parked his Toyota outside Congregation Agudath Sholom in Flatbush shortly before the start of Sabbath on Friday afternoon.
After services, he left his keys in the synagogue and walked home. When he arrived at shul on Saturday, his car was gone.
Police found it abandoned nearby.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) offered a $3,000 reward for information leading to its return.
“I hope it helped,” Hikind said.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
