Last week, police in southeastern Turkey confiscated gold-embossed Hebrew texts thought to be about 1,000 years old. Tzvi Joffre reports
Video and pictures of the books shared by the Mardin Provincial Police Department showed drawings of animals such as an owl, deer, scorpion, and bull surrounded by Hebrew writing, although it is unclear if the books were written in Hebrew or in another language or dialect that uses Hebrew characters, such as Judeo-Arabic.
The police announcement identified the four books and one scroll as Torahs. The books and the case in which the scroll was kept were all adorned with the Star of David and one of the books also had a menorah on its cover.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Tuesday that sources had informed it that the manuscripts seized by Turkish authorities had been stolen by the al-Rahman Legion, a Syrian rebel group, from the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in the Jobar neighborhood of Damascus, and were smuggled to Turkey. Locals from Jobar had reportedly demanded that the al-Rahman Legion return the manuscripts, as well as other manuscripts that the militia had allegedly stolen from the neighborhood.
The Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue was bombed and looted during the Syrian Civil War.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: https://www.jpost.com/judaism/1000-year-old-gold-embroidered-hebrew-books-seized-in-turkey-683884