A rare Jewish text, printed in Venice in 1588 and thought lost for nearly 80 years, has been returned to Hungary after being looted by the Nazis during World War II.
The book, containing the Five Books of Moses and the Haftarot, had been safeguarded at the Rabbinical Seminary of Budapest for generations before its confiscation during the Nazi occupation of Hungary.
Known as the Text di Gara, named after its Jewish-Venetian printer Giovanni di Gara, it holds immense historical and religious significance. After being printed, it became part of the collection of 19th-century Italian scholar Rabbi Lelio Della Torre, before being sold to the Budapest Rabbinical Seminary after his death in 1871.
Despite being stolen during the Holocaust in 1944, the seminary kept it in its official records. In 2023, the book unexpectedly resurfaced on the rare book website AbeBooks, listed for $19,000. Photos of the book, along with Rabbi Della Torre’s seal, confirmed it was the missing Text di Gara.
Hungarian authorities contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which launched an investigation. Manhattan agents discovered a New York book dealer, referred to as “Vendor-1,” had unknowingly held the stolen text since the 1980s. Following a legal order, the dealer voluntarily returned the book.
* Ynet contributed to this article.
