Comments (0)Rabbi Youlus, State, Reach Pact On Torah Sales
July 27, 2010Neil Rubin
Editor
After six months of national focus, the non-profit foundation supporting a Baltimore-based restorer of pre-World War II European Torahs claimed to be found in dramatic circumstances must “take all reasonable steps necessary” to authenticate the scrolls’ history as well as document their purchase from independent sources, the Maryland Secretary of State announced this week.
At issue is the work of Rabbi Menachem Youlus and Save A Torah Inc. (SATI), which supports his finding, purchasing and restoring of Eastern European and other Torah scrolls. Rabbi Youlus’s captivating tales to children and adults alike have gained him the moniker “the Indiana Jones of Torah rescuers.”
“This is basically for conciliatory purposes only and it does not constitute any validation of any guilt by any party,” Richard A. Morris, director of the Secretary of State’s charities/legal services, said of the “assurance of voluntary compliance” signed by his office, the Attorney General of Maryland and SATI.
He added that he knows of no additional state investigations into related matters at this time.
Nonetheless, advocates of the state investigation were pleased.
“They have effectively been exposed by the state,” said Menachem Z. Rosensaft, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. “By now, everyone with an IQ in triple digits is aware that they were running a scam. I don’t think anyone is seriously arguing in any of the congregations that have received these Torahs that they believe the scrolls are from where Youlus has described them to be from.”
Neither SATI president P. Richard “Rick” Zitelman nor Rabbi Youlus responded at press time to requests for interviews or statements on the agreement with the state.
At least four area congregations—Beth El, Chevrei Tzedek, Chizuk Amuno and Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah – own Torahs purchased from Rabbi Youlus.
The situation gained national attention in the wake of an extensive January 31, 2010, profile on Rabbi Youlus in The Washington Post Magazine that repeatedly questioned his tales of Torah rescues.
At that point, Mr. Rosensaft wrote to the Maryland Secretary of State asking for an investigation into possible fraud.
Among the stories in question was the claim of finding a Torah under the floorboards of a barracks at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Mr. Rosensaft’s own research revealed that occupying British troops burned the structures to the ground in May 1945 to contain a typhus epidemic.
As of press time, SATI’s website (http://www.saveatorah.org/) still carried a cover note with a months’ old summary of the organization’s investigation into the claims. SATI reported that two independent soferim—Rabbi Yitzchok Reisman and Itzhak Winer—examined 11 Torah scrolls together on Feb. 17, 2010.
Mr. Zitelman wrote that the two “confirmed what we have always known: Rabbi Menachem Youlus is an expert sofer who has restored numerous Torahs to the highest of standards, often at his own expense.”
In addition, he wrote, “The soferim found no evidence to contradict any information provided by Rabbi Youlus to the purchasers of his Torahs. All of the Torahs examined by the soferim were found to be written in pre-Holocaust years in Eastern Europe, as Rabbi Youlus had determined.”
The Agreement
Among the items in the “assurance of voluntary compliance” signed by Save A Torah, Inc. (SATI) and the offices of the Attorney General of Maryland and the Secretary of State of Maryland are:
- SATI agrees to take “all reasonable steps necessary to ensure that its board members, employees, independent contractors and other agents will only describe where a Torah was found or provide an account of its rescue if there is documentation or an independent verifiable witness to such history.”
- Without such proof, “there will be no discussion of the circumstances under which the Torah was rescued so that those who dedicate or receive rescued Torahs can do so with total confidence.”
- If SATI “breaches the agreement,” the Attorney General or Secretary of State may take “any and all steps available to enforce” it.
- If a court finds SATI in violation of this agreement, SATI will be responsible for $3,000 for the costs of investigation in addition to “any other available remedy for the conduct resulting in the breach.”
Rabbi Menachem Youlus: The Save A Torah Inc. operation that funds his work must fully document his dramatic stories of rescuing Torahs. (photo Jamie Horton)