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By Sophie Clark
Live News Reporter
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An ancient Jewish text has been discovered and returned 80 years after it was looted from a Hungarian seminary during the occupation of the Nazis in 1944.
An announcement by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) revealed that an ancient book, known as the Di Gara Text, was voluntarily given over to the courts, and is set to be returned to the Jewish Theological Seminary of the University of Jewish Studies, otherwise known as Budapest Rabbinical Seminary, in Budapest, Hungary.
The announcement was made on October 7 following confirmation of the text's forfeiture by District Judge Analisa Torres on October 4.
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According to the SDNY, the Di Gara Text was printed by Giovanni di Gara, a Venetian printer of Hebrew books in the 16th century. The text includes two Jewish books, the Torah, made up of the five books of Moses, and the Haftarot, a selection of stories and teachings from the Hebrew Bible.
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The Di Gara Text found its way to the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary in Hungary before the seminary was looted by Nazis in 1944.
The book was believed to be lost. However, in 2023, Hungarian officials became aware of a book that looked very much like the Di Gara Text for sale for $19,000 on a rare books website in the US known as AbeBooks, according to the U.S. Attorney's release.
They alerted the Department of Homeland Security, who worked with special agents in Manhattan to locate the vendor, referred to by the SDNY as "Vendor-1."
Newsweek has reached out to AbeBooks for comment.
Not only did the book resemble descriptions of the text, but it bore the stamp of Lelio Della Torre, an Italian rabbi and scholar from the 19th century.
Della Torre obtained the Di Gara Text during his lifetime, and added it to his collection of books, sealed with a stamp.
Following Della Torre's death, the book was then sent to Budapest. According to the SDNY, despite the text's disappearance, the seminary has never formally removed it as part of its collection.
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Cassy Sachar, senior librarian at Leo Baeck College, an insititution for Jewish scholarship in the U.K., told Newsweek: "As an early printed bible with commentaries it is rare but not entirely unique," and explained there are a few copies in the world.
She added, "We have a couple of other things at LBC that Di Gara printed, I think he was quite prolific. What makes the volume unique is its story: who owned, who read it, it's binding, was it censored, is it annotated, etc. and now this chapter on being stolen and reclaimed."
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the SDNY, said in a press release: "With this forfeiture, a small, but meaningful, piece of the history of the Jewish faith will be returned to its rightful owner, the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary.
"The Di Gara Text went missing for nearly 80 years after it was looted from the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary during the city's occupation by Nazi forces in 1944.
"We may never know how it ended up in the Southern District of New York, but it is now returning home. My Office retains its firm commitment to protecting priceless cultural property and, where it has been illegally taken, returning it to its rightful peoples."
Vendor-1 admitted to confirmed he had been in possession of the text, however said that he had obtained it in the 1980s and was unaware of its stolen background, according to the U.S. Attorney's release.
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Update 10/9/24 12:04pm EST: This story was updated to include comment from Cassy Sachar, senior librarian at Leo Baeck College
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