A group that salvages Holocaust-era Torahs from Europe and sells them to congregations in the United States has agreed to stop promoting dramatic rescue stories unless it can document them, according to an agreement with Maryland authorities sparked by complaints about the group's practices.
An investigation into the operations of Save a Torah of Rockville followed a Washington Post Magazine article that raised questions about stories told by Rabbi Menachem Youlus, the group's leader.
Youlus sold several Torahs to congregations in the Baltimore region. State investigators examined the claims made by Youlus regarding 11 scrolls — including one purchased by the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown — and could not verify stories of how the Torahs had been found and rescued.
Under a deal reached this month, signed by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, the group "will only describe where a Torah is found … if there is documentation or an independent verifiable witness to such history."
Youlus and Save a Torah president Richard Zitelman could not be reached for comment. On the group's website, it says that a reviewer that it retained "found no evidence to contradict any information provided by Rabbi Youlus to the purchasers of his Torahs."
The man who pushed for the investigation, Menachem Rosensaft, a vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, said that he was disappointed that no one was charged. But he said he believes the agreement makes it clear that Youlus is a con artist. In one instance, Youlus told of digging up a mass grave in Ukraine and finding a Torah wrapped in a "Gestapo body bag," according to the Post.
"Those stories are not just fantasies but desecration of memories," said Rosensaft, a New York law professor.
But in Reisterstown, Carol Pistoop, the executive director of the conference center, said she had "no doubt" that the history Youlus told her of the Torah purchased by the center is true.
According to Pistoop, Youlus said the scroll was found in an unmarked grave in Eastern Europe, among the remains of about 250 people killed during the Holocaust. Youlus said he found the 90-year-old artifact a decade ago after spending $3,000 to buy a map from a farmer and dig at a site near the region of Galitzia. He later smuggled the Torah into the United States.
Pistoop said Youlus's story was compelling. She said she knows there are doubters. "But I don't have any proof that it wasn't as he said either," she said.
Save a Torah's mission is to acquire Torahs that survived the Holocaust or had been taken from Jewish communities throughout the world. The organization said it has rescued about 600 Torahs and estimates that more than 2,000 remain to be saved in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.