Menachem Youlus

A Baltimore rabbi dubbed the ‘Jewish Indiana Jones’ for his supposed efforts hunting down torahs lost in the Holocaust, has begun a four-year federal prison sentence for fraud.

Menachem Youlus

Menachem Youlus began serving a 51-month prison sentence last month at the federal correctional institution (FCI) in Otisville, N.Y., the Baltimore Jewish Times reported. Convicted of two counts of fraud in a Manhattan federal court on Oct. 11, Youlus is set to be behind bars until 2016, although he could be freed earlier.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Youlus co-founded Save a Torah, Inc. in 2004, a charity that raised money to rescue and acquire torahs that had been lost in the Holocaust.

The media-friendly cleric won the moniker the “Jewish Indiana Jones” for his supposedly daring overseas trips.

But the entire operation was a fraud, federal prosecutors proved, and Youlus only left the U.S. for brief personal tripst to Canada and Israel. He took $144,000 from the charity, even though he boasted of doing the operation as a mitzvah.

“During the time period of the fraud, Youlus bought 24 used Torahs from those two used Torah dealers for prices ranging from $3,250 to $9,500, with an average cost of $5,830 per Torah. Based on bank records and Save a Torah records, it is clear that Youlus received from $7,000 to $32,714 from the charity for each Torah he provided, with most payments in the range of $10,000 to $20,000,” according to a sentencing memorandum, the paper reported.

One of those whose complaints led to the case against Youlus was Menachem Rosensaft, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, and the general counsel of the World Jewish Congress.

Rosensaft, whose parents survived Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz, called authorities after smelling a rat about one of Youlus’ tales aboyt finding a Torah scroll under floor boards at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Rosensaft knew that Allied troops burnt the barracks to the ground when they liberated the death camp in 1945.

“At that point it became clear to me that Menachem Youlus was a liar. He was not an exaggerator, but an out-and-out categorical liar,” Rosensaft told the Baltimore Jewish Times.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount