As Jews fled from one land to another to escape persecution, they have tried to bring sacred objects—especially Torah scrolls—with them, if not always successfully. The Jerusalem Post recounts the stories of ten historic Torahs that either were transported by Jewish exiles or left behind and later rescued. This is one of them:
Last year, [Israel’s] foreign ministry dedicated a Torah for use at its office synagogue in Jerusalem that was smuggled out of Baghdad.
The scroll, estimated to be 150 to 200 years old, is believed to be from Kurdistan. When most of the country’s Jews fled to Israel after 1948, the scroll was left behind, as the Iraqi government had banned [departing Jews] from taking their property with them, and seized assets from those who left.
The ministry would not say just how the scroll arrived in Israel, but in 2006 or 2007 it ended up in the Israeli embassy in Jordan. When, in September 2011, the Israeli embassy in Cairo was attacked by a huge mob, the ministry decided to remove all extraneous items from its embassy in Amman in case of similar incidents. Among those items was the Iraqi Torah scroll, which was brought to the ministry in Jerusalem.
In November 2013, Amnon Israel, the new manager of storage and supplies for the ministry, noticed the scroll in a storage room on his first day. He sought out an expert in Torah restoration, and after six months of work it was ready for use.
Read more on Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/The-unbelievable-tales-of-smuggled-Torah-scrolls-that-survived-incredible-journeys-470710