Jewish Indiana Jones Pleads Guilty to Torah Fraud

The Jewish Indiana Jones, who claimed he rescued rare Torahs hidden during the Holocaust, faces more than five years in prison for swindling investors.

Menachem Youlus, the owner of a Jewish bookstore in Wheaton, Maryland and a sofer (scribe), apologized to the court and his victims on Thursday for defrauding people who invested in the charity.

Youlus, 50, was one of the founders of the Rockville, Maryland, Save the Torah charity. He spun fantastic tales of following clues to uncover rare Torahs hidden in Europe during the Nazi occupation. These fabrications convinced wealthy donors to provide money for his imaginary adventures. Prosecutors said that Youlus defrauded investors of $862,000.

He claimed he found Torahs at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Another Torah was discovered at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, he told investors. He claimed he found the Torah secreted away in a metal box near the camp.

The purpose of the Save the Torahs charity was to recover rare Torahs and give them to communities that needed the valuable scrolls.

Investigators related that Youlus rarely traveled the world to hunt for rare Torahs. Instead, Youlus pocketed a great deal of the $1.2 million he collected for the charity, using it for meals, health care, tuition for his children at exclusive private schools and other personal expenses.

Investigators said that the Torahs he did give to Jewish communities were bought by Youlus from Torah collectors throughout the United States, sometimes at highly inflated prices.

During one Torah ceremony in 2004, Youlus bragged: “I guess you could call me the Jewish Indiana Jones,” according to the court complaint.

This is in reference to the Steven Spielberg adventure movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” In this 1981 movie, actor Harrison Ford played the role of an vagabond archeologist who traveled the world, seeking out rare historical artifacts.

At his court plea, Youlus said he fabricated exciting tales of his accounts to find rare Torahs. These tales included the imaginary story of finding a Torah in a metal box near Auschwitz.

His tales of finding valuable Torahs included stories of beatings, imprisonment and going deeply into debt to find Torahs in Eastern Europe.

The story of the Auschwitz Torah had all the elements necessary to clothe it with an intriguing Indiana Jones tale.

The Philadelphia Jewish Voice published an account of the discovery of the Auschwitz Torah, as related by Youlus.

The Voice account tells of the discovery of this Torah in Oswiecim, which is near the Auschwitz death camp. According to Jewish survivors of Oswiecim, the Torahs of the synagogue were removed and buried two days before the Nazis arrived and burned down the synagogue. Each Torah was buried in a separate metal box.

Over the years, many people tried to find these Torahs. The entire site where the synagogue once stood was carefully excavated but Sifrei Torah was not found.

Youlus believed that another tradition told of the burial of the Torahs in the local cemetery. His son suggested that perhaps the cemetery was larger during that period.

Youlus discovered that was indeed the case. With a metal detector in hand, Youlus began a search of homes built on the original cemetery. Within days, he found a metal box with a Torah scroll inside. Unfortunately, four panels from the Torah scroll were missing.

He ran an ad in the local newspaper, asking if anyone might be in possession of the panels. The next day, a priest answered the ad and said the panels were in his keeping.

The panels matched in content, style and pagination. The priest came into possession of the panels and had guarded them for 60 years.

This false tale began to unravel when scholars specializing in the Holocaust questioned the account by Youlus. Youlus couldn’t remember the priest’s name. He had no canceled check to show he bought the panels. Youlus insisted he paid in cash.

There was also no evidence that Youlus had traveled to Oswiecim during the time he claimed he found the Torah.

“I know what I did was wrong, and I deeply regret my conduct,” Youlus said in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. His trail of lies spanned the years between 2002 and 2010.

A deal Youlus made with federal prosecutors calls for him to serve five years and three months in prison. Sentencing will be on June 21.