Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Craigslist Helps Synagogue Locate Lost Torah

Craigslist can help you find that perfect cement mixer or even lead you to the mysterious cigarette-smoking beauty you sometimes see at your bus stop. But as a Phoenix synagogue found out last week, the sprawling advertisement site is also good for something else: recovering stolen Torah scrolls.

Sam Saks, a Young Israel of Phoenix congregant, posted a $500 reward online last Tuesday, a day after the Torah disappeared, asking for the scrolls to be returned, “no questions asked.” Later that day, he received an email from a woman who purportedly found the Torah — valued at over $35,000 — in a city garbage bin.

Initially, the woman refused to return the Torah, forcing Saks to send her a pleading email, along with a note from the synagogue’s rabbi, stressing that it needed to be back by Friday evening.

“The trick was to let the person know we were not interested in legal action and that we just wanted to get the Torah back,” Saks told CNN’s Belief Blog.

Indeed, charges will not be filed. The woman returned the Torah, along with some other stolen religious paraphernalia, Friday morning.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.