Rabbi Menachem Youlus removes dirt from a Torah that had been buried in a Polish cemetery to keep it from the Nazis. Brendan Hoffman for the New York Times
On the Iraq Crisis discussion list yesterday, Peter Tompa drew attention to an article from the Jewish Bugle discussing how a Torah scroll from Mosul, Iraq came to be in the Temple Isaiah synagogue in Fulton, Maryland. He wrote: the US military was involved in the rescue operation described in this article so I do not believe there can be any claim the material was "smuggled."
What the article claims is simply astounding, not because of the described act, but the implications of the dismissive way it is presented to its audience in the US. The article raises but supplies no answer to some very disturbing questions, perhaps airing them here might provide some satisfactory answers.
We read:
In the battle-torn Iraqi city of Mosul, with heavy fighting all around, members of the Army's 82nd Airborne unit ducked into an abandoned building during a lull in fighting in March 2007. [...] they appeared to be in a synagogue. [...] the soldiers found something hidden below the floor. Wrapped in tissue-like paper was a Torah scroll, dating back 400 years, that had apparently been left behind by the congregation. [...] The Army knew whom to call: Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the scribe-turned-Torah-rescuer who runs the Washington, D.C.-based Save A Torah foundation. [...] After getting the Torah out of Iraq, Youlus also knew whom to call: Rabbi Mark Panoff, spiritual leader of Fulton's Temple Isaiah, who had expressed interest in acquiring a special Torah for the congregation about a year ago. [...] Youlus gave him three days to accept the offer. Panoff raced to share the story with the congregation's board members, who were quickly able to raise the $20,000 needed for the purchase [...].He learned of this Torah via e-mail, but "getting it out wasn't so easy," he said, explaining he had to disassemble its 60 panels to facilitate taking it out of the country.
Was this an ownerless building the American army were in when they found and took the scroll? Or was it one that the American army had bought from the owner together with its contents before taking the scroll? The building is described as "abandoned" but the scroll "hidden" and "left behind". I suspect however the building in fact did have an owner, bricks and mortar generally do - and even if the US army killed them or chased them away, the property and everything in it (including 20 000 dollar antique scrolls) belongs not to scavengers in US uniform but to their heirs which can be established by due process. The newspaper says nothing about the process of establishing ownership. Just that the US soldiers searched around and found something they fancied which they took, and then later was sold by a third party they emailed in the US for 20 000 dollars. "Stuff happens", obviously.
I don't know what the soldiers of 82nd Airborne call it, but regardless of value or whether it was hidden or lying in plain view, appropriating something without the explicit permission of the owner is considered in most countries thieving. Its what is the essence of "looting" about which there is all this discussion in the case of Iraq. But then as we saw in the case of US newspaper reports about Hurricane Katrina, it sometimes depends what colour skin somebody has whether they are a "looter" or a "forager". The fact that these guys wore US uniforms apparently makes them salvors in the eyes of the intended readership of the discussed article. I am pretty sure not all readers of this will see them in that light.
Ownership rights aside, as far as I know, the 2003 invasion did not bring about in the end a rescinding of the existing Iraqi cultural property laws (even though this is what the US antique and antiquity dealers and collectors in the American Council for Cultural Policy [sic] was apparently proposing). According to the Iraqi law of antiquities # 50 for the year of 2002, the finder of a 400-year old artefact hidden below the floor of a building has an obligation to turn it in to be taken care by the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, not "take it out of the country" - and that is whether they wear the uniform of the US armed forces or local native garb.
Surely the 82nd Airborne was in Mosul in March 2007 to uphold Iraqi law and order, not disregard it, or enter into some deal with a Washington bookseller specialising in finding clients for old scrolls. To help preserve property, not steal it. And it does not matter if the artefact was new or old, Jewish, Sumerian, Assyrian, Kurdish, Roman or Islamic, the law is the law. The article cited suggests that in this case the law was broken.
Nota bene according to the article this was some time after March 2007. So well after Security Council 1483 of May 2003 (which makes no differentiation of cultural property from Iraqi territory on ethnic or religious grounds). Also well after the US' own "Emergency Protection for Iraqi Cultural Antiquities Act of 2004". It is not at all clear from this article how the object was exported and why.
Youlus the seller of the manuscript admits "getting it out wasn't so easy," explaining the scroll had to be disassembled into its 60 panels to facilitate taking it out of the country. Why on earth would there be a need to do that if the export was legal? That's the same Youlus the bookseller and "Indiana Jones of Rabbis", that apparently himself smuggles other old scrolls out of other countries "in ingenious fashion across hostile borders", like in one case reportedly wrapping them round his body and covering them with a trenchcoat to get them past border guards. Why "hostile"? Because removing items like this from the source country without an export licence is illegal. Calling them "bad" laws, or "restrictive" laws when they get in the way of one's own interests does not change that in the slightest. These laws have a purpose.
Youlus does not explain whether, given the current restrictions, he had any problems at US customs control getting the object taken with such difficulty out of Iraq into the US.
Once in the US and put back together again, the scroll was sold by the bookseller for 20000 dollars to a newish Jewish community in a Maryland town, so they can have something old to build their identity around (see below). But we have not learnt how Youlus had gained title to the object.
Perhaps the 82nd Airborne could be encouraged to give their version of this story; certainly from the news report before us they really do not come out of this very well. What else did soldiers of the 82nd Airborne find in the deserted buildings of Mosul once they'd chased the natives out? How much of that is now being bought and sold in the United States? Perhaps Rabbi Youlus can be induced to give his own side of the story, how he acquired ownership of this item and how and on the basis of what kind of documentation it was taken out of Iraq (and why). Also it would be useful to hear from The Isaiah temple in Fulton about what documentation accompanied the sale of cultural property which they know was exported from Iraq in the last few months and what steps they took before spending their congregation's money to acquire a desirable piece of cultural property to ascertain this was not stolen property. The report cited here raises and does nothing to answer a whole lot of disturbing questions.
The scroll from Mosul is currently kept in the synagogue in a new (25 year old) Reformed community in Fulton, Maryland. Its Rabbi said: "I think it adds an extra dimension and awareness that the Jewish people is very diverse, in many lands and different settings, and each setting had its own traditions". So in effect this item of newly-acquired cultural property from Iraq is now being used in the United States to give a newly-formed minority group a sense of "roots" and "belonging" to a wider community while being differentiated by possession of something "unique and precious". Is this not precisely what Chicago-based James Cuno ("Who owns Antiquity?") is currently accusing "nationalist" source countries of using cultural property for? He thinks it is reprehensible, and sees this as a reason why the laws controlling movement of cultural property across borders can be ignored by US collectors. He fails to admit though that this is precisely what the removed cultural material is being used for in the United States. Isn't this like the Katrina looters, its called "politicising" cultural property by US authors when its the foreigners that do it, but perfectly acceptable to them when the perpetrators are US citizens? Does calling a business deal a "foundation" with some higher aims claimed make artefact smuggling acceptable in US eyes?
Mosul was a cosmopolitan city for centuries, the Jewish community was an integral part of that multi-cultural society. Even more so today in the current turmoil following the 2003 invasion do the Iraqi people need tangible reminders of that. That scroll, like all other cultural property illegally removed since 1990 belongs in the place where it was made and used through the generations as an integral part of the cultural fabric of the region. It does not belong in Fulton in the United States. It should surely go back, it is not for the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne, still less bookseller Mr Youlus to decide.
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