Valuable sacred scrolls stolen from synagogue

The theft of two scrolls with an estimated total value of $80,000 to $100,000 from an Ala Moana synagogue may be the work of someone who knows their worth and not some petty thief.

“Saturday night, someone got into the synagogue and stole the sacred Torah, the holiest object in the Jewish religion,” Rabbi Itchel Krasnjansky of Chabad of Hawaii said. “We’re horrified that someone would steal something sacred. … We believe it is really, really bad karma.”

The two scrolls, handwritten on parchment, were stored in an ark, a special wooden cabinet, at the front of the synagogue, which is adjacent to the Ala Moana Hotel, but left behind a silver crown having some intrinsic value.

“Clearly, whoever stole it knew what they were looking for,” he said, adding that the synagogue was not ransacked.

A congregant, upon opening the ark at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, discovered the burglary.

Krasnjansky, suspecting the thief or thieves may have planned to smuggle the scrolls out of state since there is no market in Hawaii, went to the airport and met with officials from Transportation Security Administration and the Sheriff Division, in addition to reporting the crime to a police detective.

Krasnjansky and his wife, Pearl, originally from New York, said in many major Jewish communities some years ago, Torah scrolls were being stolen from synagogues. So many installed safes inside the arks to keep them safe.

“We’ve always felt, Hawaii being the Aloha State, we never took those precautions,” Pearl Krasnjansky said.

The synagogue does have surveillance footage police will review, and detectives are checking with the Ala Moana Hotel to see whether they have any footage as well.

Members of the Chabad community are offering a $5,000 reward for the return of the scrolls.

One originates from Lithuania, dates back to the 1850s, survived the Holocaust and was donated to the synagogue, said Krasnjansky. The other was commissioned by the parents of Daniel Levey to memorialize their 19-year-old son who died in a 2003 hiking accident in Nuuanu.

Each scroll, handwritten in Hebrew, contains the first five books of the Bible, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, containing about 3,000 characters, and could take up to a year to complete, the Krasnjanskys said. They estimate their value at $40,000 to $50,000 each.

Each is wrapped around a wooden shaft and covered with a special mantle, is roughly 3-1/2 feet tall and weighs 30 to 50 pounds.

“A synagogue is not a synagogue without a Torah,” Pearl Krasnjansky said.

The Torah is read at prayer services on the Sabbath.

A friend offered to lend a Torah to the rabbi, so he traveled to Kona and hand-carried it back.

In the past the synagogue has had some petty theft and graffiti with obscenities written outside with the word “Jews,” but the couple did not know whether this burglary was a hate crime.

Bennett Hymer, 74, a regular at the synagogue for the last 25 years, said, “We hope whoever did it will change their mind and bring it back. We pray for them.”