"This is our old guy," Hantman says, as she prepares to tell the story of the Torah that Youlus sold to her congregation at the time, the Reconstructionist Group of Southern Westchester.
Her tale is almost identical to the one Kushner says Youlus told him. Hantman says she got in touch with Youlus in the summer of 2001 as she was preparing for her small worship group's first High Holy Day services. The member needed a Torah but couldn't afford the $25,000 or more for a new one. So she phoned Youlus and soon found herself captivated by his "angelic presence." "This was an Orthodox rabbi, you understand. Orthodox rabbis don't normally even speak to the likes of me," the clergywoman says. "He didn't only talk to me, he referred to me as 'rabbi.' So I already knew this was a special guy."
Youlus recounted how he had rescued the Torah -- one of a pair, Hantman recalls, that he discovered in the Ukrainian mass grave. The scribe offered the scroll to Hantman's congregation for $6,000. Hantman recalls that Youlus was finishing the Torah's restoration on Sept. 11. She remembers Youlus telling her that he was a member of a Jewish burial society and had to rush to the Pentagon to retrieve the remains of Jewish victims. "And in the middle of it, he [finished] this Torah," Hantman marvels.
The story of that Torah's rescue from the ashes of the Holocaust had special resonance that Rosh Hashanah, when smoke was still rising from Ground Zero. Several members of Hantman's worship group worked at the World Trade Center. Some would find an even closer connection to the story. Hantman recalls: "Once a gentleman came up and said his father was from Kamenets-Podolsk, and he just wanted to touch the scroll because it might have been his father's, and he had [lost] people. People have said that they felt -- you know, very mystical people -- that they felt emanations. ..."
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Seated at a laminate table covered with scrolls in his bookstore -- the headquarters for his operation -- Youlus explains the spiritual charge he gets from supplying Torahs, new and restored, to congregations around the United States and overseas. "I've been to so many Torah dedications, and it never gets old," he explains, "because it's a chance to establish a special bond between God's chosen people and God." Around him, the Wheaton shop's two rooms overflow with books and Judaica: prayer shawls, menorahs, children's games, stickers and tchochkes. In the rear, several dozen antique Torah scrolls, many wrapped in black trash bags, lie on a set of shelves awaiting repair.
Customers, including local Jewish clergy, frequently interrupt Youlus, in person and over the phone. He greets everyone with a cheery, high-pitched "Hello" and punctuates the air with emphatic hand gestures. His life outside the bookstore is just as busy, he says: "Last week, I was in Europe once and on the West Coast twice."
As the store's clerk takes scrolls off the shelf and lays them gently on a table, Youlus eagerly describes the mechanics of being a scribe. He shows off turkey quills, used to write Torahs, bits of klaf (parchment) and explains the intense spiritual concentration required of his profession. Youlus says he uses high-tech infrared equipment to inspect the condition of the scrolls and "climate-controlled" ink to restore them. Touting his expertise in dating parchment, Youlus says he has studied with curators "in Europe," but pressed to say with whom he has studied, he won't give names. Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore confirms that Youlus graduated with a degree in Talmudic Law and was ordained in 1983. He also studied accounting at Towson State University.
On his Save a Torah promotional video, posted on the Web in 2007, Youlus says he has rescued 500 Torahs since he began his mission a quarter-century ago. The number Youlus gives on this spring afternoon in 2009 has soared to 1,100.
The fundraising video describes Youlus's rescue operation in dramatic fashion. While a violin plays a mournful tune, supporters give testimonials. The screen flashes archival photos of concentration camp barracks and piles of desecrated Torah scrolls. The message is clear: Make a donation so Youlus can parachute in, rescue these fragile survivors and breathe new life into the ancient text known as the Tree of Life.
One testimonial comes from Rabbi Leila Gal Berner of Kol Ami, a Reconstructionist community in Northern Virginia. Cradling a Torah from Youlus, Gal Berner, 59, relates its remarkable history. "There was a legend of a Torah scroll that had been hidden under the floorboards at Bergen-Belsen [the German concentration camp]. Menachem came to Bergen-Belsen on a tour and literally fell into a hole in the corner of the floorboards, felt something strange, suspected that this might be where it was. It was dug up. Indeed it was the Torah, fully there. After some negotiations, Rabbi Youlus was able to purchase the Torah." For Gal Berner, rescuing a scroll like hers means "that community didn't die when Hitler tried to kill it."
But Youlus's discovery at Bergen-Belsen comes as news to the historian at the camp museum. "I can definitely exclude that there could have been a find of the Torah scroll on the grounds of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial" in recent years, writes Thomas Rahe. In 1945, British troops burned down all the barracks to stop the spread of typhus.
Asked in the shop about his Bergen-Belsen adventure, Youlus at first jokes about his dumb luck -- being a "schlemiel" and literally stumbling on a holy treasure. Confronted with the camp historian's denial, he shoots back: "It's not Bergen-Belsen. ... She [Gal But there are doubts about his thrilling tales. ( 2 ). Berner] says it was Bergen-Belsen." Which camp was it? He can't remember: He says he has toured so many concentration camp sites. Why did he allow Gal Berner to tell this story on the video? He says he's never watched it.
Gal Berner -- a historian who has taught at leading universities -- stands by Youlus even after being informed of the facts and of Youlus's denial. In an e-mail, she skirts the question of what the scribe told her about the Torah's origins. "I believe that Rabbi Youlus is an honest man who is doing holy work," she says. "I believe that he must navigate complicated territory in order to find and rescue the Torah scrolls he finds." ( washingtonpost.com )
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