If You Feel It In Your Heart Today-
Become A Leader Of Tomorrow

oin This Year's Artzenu Yisrael III Mission to Israel

Highlights

+ See it all—from the Galilee in the north to the Negev and Eilat in the south.

4- Explore the Old City of Jerusalem with JNF's experienced tour guides.

► Share in the achievements of JNF by actually planting your own tree.

+ Climb Masada and experience the miracles that took place there.

± Enjoy sunny Eilat and "dive" into the beautiful coral reefs.

+ Float in the Dead Sea (but don't taste it!)

+ Witness JNF's achievements throughout Israel.

+ Participate in exciting tours, including:

• Water conservation projects.
• Bedouin camp.
• Jeep ride through the desert.
• Arid-lands research facilities.
• Tourist spots.
• Mitzpim (hilltop outposts).

+ MUCH, MUCH MORE!

Payment

• $400 deposit due with completed mission application form.
• Balance of $899 due 30 days before departure.
• All payments refundable up to 30 days before departure.
•
• Payable by check, MasterCard, Visa.
• Applications in after September 1 subject to a $200 administrative fee.

*Price includes airfare, hotels, touring, most meals.
Those requiring an add-on fare will be charged an additional $100 per person.
Itinerary & all prices subject to change without notice.

For further information,
contact Ed Rosenthal at JNF,
(313) 557-6644

THE D E TRO IT JE WIS H NEWS

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AMERICAN
CANCER
SOCIETY3

Help us keep winning.

An Epidemic Of
Stealing 'Torahs

JEREMY KALMANOFSKY SPECIAL T 0 THE JEWISH NEWS

n Thursday morning,
Oct. 8, the day after
Yom Kippur, someone
— almost certainly a
Jew — stole a Torah scroll
from the Jewish Theological
Seminary in New York.
It was the second Torah
theft within two weeks from
JTS' upper Manhattan cam-
pus. Each theft is suspected
to have been committed by
the same person; each is
regarded as an "inside job"
pulled off by someone famil-
iar with the Seminary's
layout and operations. Each
netted a sacred scroll that
would cost between $12,000
and $15,000 to replaCe, said
Rabbi Joseph Brodie, JTS
dean of students. And each
time the thief seems to have
escaped without leaving any
revealing clues, he said.
"Personally I was just
very...shocked," said Rabbi
Brodie, after groping a mo-
ment for a word to capture
his reaction to the incidents.
"I can't tell you how many
people around here felt a
sense of violation."
At Manhattan's Mt. Sinai
hospital, Rabbi Charles
Spirn read from a Torah at
morning services on Mon-
day, Dec. 28. When he open-
ed the Ark the next after-
noon, no Torah.
"There have been hun-
dreds and hundreds of
prayers for sick people
offered over that Torah,"
said the chaplain. "When I
think of the aliyahs given to
sick people, wearing their
hospital gowns, crying, with
I.V.s in their arms, sitting in
wheelchairs. ...We're all
very, very, very depressed."
Indeed, the crime is almost
unthinkable. A Sefer Torah
is the holiest object in the
Jewish religion. So holy it
cannot, by religious law, be

0

sold except to pay for a wed-
ding, education or for
medical bills. So holy that
one should fast if one sees a
Torah dropped.
Yet the theft, and then the
quick re-sale, of these holy
scrolls has been a problem

Jeremy Kalmanofsky is a

writer in New York. This
article was made possible by
a grant from the Fund for
Jouralism on Jewish Life, a
project of the CRB Founda-
tion of Montreal and the
Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Any views expressed are
solely those of the author.

for a dozen years in syn-
agogues and schools. And
while an international com-
puterized Torah registry
begun in 1983 caused a steep
drop in thefts — from 82 in
1981 to usually fewer than
10 per year now — the in-
cidents persist.
"As long as people like
money, there will always be
someone who will steal for
it," said Herbie Staysky,
whose family has owned a
Judaica store on the Lower
East Side of Manhattan
since 1931. "Goes to show
you that nothing's sacred.
Anything for the almighty
dollar."
Almost all Torah thefts
occur in the metropolitan
areas of New York, New
Jersey and Philadelphia.
Even in such heavily Jewish
areas as Chicago and Los
Angeles, Jewish community
leaders said, Torah thefts
are rare.
Experts in Torah thefts de-
scribed three common
scenarios for such crimes:

People
feel
violated.

• Amid the dissolution of
an existing synagogue, a
member will take a scroll,
either to use or sell, without
legal right to it;
• a scribe will be hired to
repair a valuable scroll and
switch it for a cheaper one;
• burglary, perhaps the
most troubling variety.
Even in the burglaries, the
thieves are almost always
Jews, and money is almost
always the motive, experts
agreed.
"These are not acts of anti-
Semitism," said David
Pollack, associate executive
director of the New York
Jewish Community Rela-
tions Council. Typically,
bias crimes involve van-
dalism and destruction of
ritual objects — the ripping
or burning of a scroll, for ex-
ample — not stealing them.
And typically, non-Jewish
burglars are unaware of the
value of the scrolls, said
Werner Loeb, who runs the
Universal Torah Registry.
"Usually, the ornaments

TORAHS page 116