[MSN] French library in New York suit over stolen Hebrew text (in Agence France Presse, 13 June 2006)

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French library in New York suit over stolen Hebrew text (in Agence France
Presse, 13 June 2006)

13:19

PARIS, June 13, 2006 (AFP) - 


France's national library has launched a suit against a New York man for the
return of an important 13th century Hebrew manuscript stolen several years
ago, library officials said Tuesday. "It has to be returned to where it
belongs, among the collection of France's national heritage," Jean-Noel
Jeanneney, president of the Bibilotheque Nationale de France (BNF) told a
press conference. The manuscript, known as Hebrew 52, is a complete Bible in
Hebrew, and believed to be one of the oldest surviving examples of the
Pentateuch or the five books of the Torah which had belonged to the French
national collection since 1668. 

It was allegedly stolen in 1998 by a trusted curator at the BNF, who sneaked
it out of the country to Britain using a customs autorisation he had signed
himself. It is believed he had managed to sell it for some 80,000 dollars.
The book eventually ended up in the United States and was sold by someone
else via Christie's in New York in May 2000 for some 350,000 dollars to
Josef Goldman before anyone knew it was missing. The theft was only
discovered a few months later in July 2000, when a reader in Paris asked to
consult the text and it could not be found. 

After a long police inquiry, involving Interpol and with the help of Malachi
Beit Arie, a former director of Israel's national library, the book was
traced to New York. 
In March this year, curator Michel Garel, 57, who worked at the BNF for 28
years, was given a two-year suspended sentence for theft by a Paris court
and ordered to pay 400,000 in damages to the French state. He has appealed
the sentence claiming he was made a scapegoat by others. But the BNF is now
pressing Goldman for the return of the precious book, with the help of New
York-based attorney Pierre Cournot, who filed a suit with the Supreme Court
in New York on May 26. 
"In the United States there exists the right for the original owner of a
stolen object to demand that the buyer return it," he said, adding that
Goldman and his lawyers had not raised the issue of compensation with the
BNF. If the case is not resolved in the meantime, it is unlikely to go to
trial until late 2007. Both Goldman and Christie's were reported by the New
York Post last month to have said they had not known the book was stolen
when it was auctioned. 
jkb/ss