Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Rabbi Finds $98K in Desk — and Gives It Back

Talk about bang for your buck.

Noach Muroff, a high school teacher at Yeshiva of New Haven, bought a desk on Craigslist for less than $200. What he didn’t know was that there was $98,000 hidden inside.

Noach Muroff

Muroff bought the desk in September. When it wouldn’t fit through the door, he and his wife had to disassemble it. To their surprise, they found a shopping bag full of cash hidden behind the file cabinet.

But the best part? He gave it all back.

Right away, my wife and I sort of looked at each other, and we said, ‘We can’t keep this money,’” Muroff said in an interview with WTNH News.

The couple called the original owner to return the hefty sum, which was apparently part of an inheritance that had been hid there and forgotten about.

Orthodox blog Vos Iz Neias posted a handwritten thank-you note from the stunned owner:

“Dear Noah, I cannot thank you enough for your honesty and integrity. I do not think there are too many people in this world that would have done what you did by calling me. I do like to believe that there are still good people left in this crazy world we live in. You certainly are one of them.”

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.