Hundreds of fragments of sifrei Torah from different lands and many eras— all waiting to be studied and analyzed
“Reb Yehoshua, maybe you can help me.”
The man on the other end of the line sounded miserable. He was an elderly Persian dealer in sifrei Torah who would buy used scrolls, refurbish them, and resell them from his Meah Shearim storefront, but now he was stuck. He’d just spent a considerable sum on a sefer Torah an agent had assured him was a rare antique, but one interested buyer took a look and pronounced, “Something here doesn’t look right.”
The dealer called Rabbi Yehoshua Yankelewitz, an expert on sifrei Torah and the most arcane details of the world of sta”m, asking him if he could give the sefer Torah a look.
“It took me three minutes to determine that the sefer Torah was a fraud,” says Rabbi Yankelewitz. “The seller had expertly sewn together the yerios of various sifrei Torah that he’d acquired from a bunch of different locations and communities and passed it off as a valuable antique.”
The dealer despaired at all that lost money — but then Rabbi Yankelewitz threw him off guard with an unexpected offer to purchase it. The dealer was thrilled to recoup his thousand dollars after learning that the sefer Torah wasn’t worth anything as an antique, and Rabbi Yakelewitz had hit the jackpot too.
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