Lost Tefillin Owner Identified as Israeli Man Whose Bags Were Misplaced
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The owner of the last of seven pairs of tefillin discovered by a Florida rabbi at a store that sells the contents of unclaimed airline baggage has been located.
The religious item belongs to an Israeli man who was traveling last December between Mexico and Denver when his suitcase went missing, the news website Vos Iz Neis reported.
Rabbi Uri Pilichowski was on vacation with his family when he visited the store in Scottsboro, Ala., looking for cheap cell phones and found the sets of tefillin, the New York Daily News reported. The rabbi bought the religious items, worth hundreds of dollars, for $45 each on July 1. He then posted photos of the bags in which they were stored on Facebook in an attempt to find the owners.
Six of the seven pairs were claimed in less than a week, with four of the owners living in the New York area, one in Israel and one in Los Angeles, according to Vos Iz Neis.
The owner of the last pair was discovered this week after an Israeli friend of the Pilichowski family reposted the photos of the tefillin bag on Facebook and did some legwork to discover the owner, including speaking to the sofer, the person who writes holy texts on parchment, who had last checked the tefillin and knew who was the owner.
Did you know that only 2% of Forward readers donate to support our nonprofit newsroom? That 2% make it possible for millions to read the Forward without a paywall or subscription — removing any barriers to the full and fair Jewish story.
But while the Forward is free to read, it isn’t free to produce. Big stories — like deep dives into the antisemitism data, political scoops or reporting trips to college campuses — take months of research and fact-checking. All while we keep you informed of what you need to know each day.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Forward Publisher & CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
