Torah Scroll theft in Missouri similar to Kenosha theft

KENOSHA, WI — Police are investigating the theft of a $30,000 Torah scroll from a St. Louis-area synagogue, a case that is similar to the theft in April of two Torah scrolls valued at $40,000 to $60,000 each from an Orthodox synagogue in Kenosha. Authorities are investigating whether there are connections between those two cases and three other thefts of the sacred Jewish scrolls in different parts of the country.

“It was very similar,” Rabbi Tzali Wilschanski, of Congregation Bnai Zedek, 1602 56th St., Kenosha, told the Journal Sentinel. “I actually spoke to the rabbi there. There was no break-in. It was another Chabad center. They also stole the cantor’s prayer book.”

One difference, however, is that the thief or thieves took only one of two Torah scrolls that were in the Missouri synagogue’s ark, Wilschanski said.

The items were taken from Congregation Bais Menachem-Chabad in University City, Mo., and had been missing since late May. The Associated Press and the Kansas City Star reported the theft this week.

Wilschanski has been using a Torah scroll borrowed from Beth Hillel Temple, a Reform synagogue in Kenosha. Not wanting to keep it too long, he plans to return it next week and try to borrow a Torah elsewhere. He said that his congregation is hiring a scribe to begin writing a new Torah scroll in Kenosha in September, which will cost about $50,000 and take about one year.

The parchment scrolls, which contain the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, are used in services and are considered Judaism’s most sacred objects. They are hand-written by trained scribes to exacting standards in accordance with Jewish law.

Wilschanski can be reached at (262) 359-0770