Trump to return ancient oil lamps to Israel
For a time, the lamps were also stored at the house of Saul Fox, the prominent Jewish Trump donor who gave Trump the lamps
Annette Nagar from the Israel Antiquities Authority shows an oil lamp tool as she stands in an ancient Byzantine church dating from 1,500 years ago discovered during an archaeological rescue excavation near Jerusalem, June 10, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
By Ron Kampeas July 20, 2023
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump says he will return a set of ancient oil lamps to the Israel Antiquities Authority.
“These historic items were presented by a representative of the Israeli antiquities authority with the full support of the organization,” the Wall Street Journal quoted an unidentified Trump spokesman as saying. “As the items were displayed as originally intended, the office will be expediting their return to the organization’s representative.”
The announcement, published on Thursday, came after a revelation this week in Haaretz that the Israel Antiquities Authority had been asking for the return of the lamps for months, to no avail. Saul Fox, the Jewish Republican donor who gave Trump the priceless items, told the Journal that he believes that the items were meant to be in Trump’s custody permanently.
Fox, who is based in California and is also a major donor to the Israel Antiquities Authority, said that he originally asked the authority to present Trump with the lamps at the White House Hanukkah party in 2019 to thank him for his Israel policies. The State Department needed to first vet the set of six lamps, Fox said, and they were not ready in time for the party.
Three months later, Fox said, he paid for a courier to bring him the lamps. He stored them in his house “and sort of forgot about it,” he told the Journal. Then in 2021, Trump invited Fox to attend a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s Florida estate. Fox’s girlfriend designed a presentation case for the lamps.
While he was at Mar-a-Lago, Fox got an urgent message from the director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority saying there had been a “miscommunication,” and that Fox had to return the lamps.
Fox ignored the message and presented the lamps to Trump, believing that while they remained the property of the authority they were to be a “permanent exhibition of Israel’s national treasures” in Trump’s custody. The authority again asked Fox to get the lamps back, but he resisted, finding the request offensive.
The former director of the authority, who organized the sending of the lamps, told the Journal that “Saul Fox operated transparently with the antiquities authority.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
