Authorities in New York this week completed a lengthy process to return a rare 16th-century Jewish manuscript, looted by the Nazis, to the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest.
The manuscript, “Di Gara”, contains the Five Books of Moses and the Haftarot. It was printed in Venice by publisher Giovanni di Gara and once belonged to Italian rabbi and scholar Lelio Della Torre. After Della Torre’s death, his collection was sold to the Rabbinical Seminary in Hungary’s capital, where the book became an integral part of the library.
In 1944, during the Nazi occupation of Budapest, the seminary’s treasures were looted and the book disappeared. For nearly 80 years, “Di Gara” was considered lost—until it suddenly surfaced on a U.S. rare book website.
In March 2023, Hungarian officials alerted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to the book’s attempted sale for $19,000 on the website AbeBooks. Photos posted online showed a stamp identifying it as part of the Della Torre collection. In April 2023, agents from Homeland Security’s Cultural Property and Antiquities Unit seized the book in New York. In October 2024, a federal judge signed a forfeiture order allowing the book’s return to its lawful owners in Budapest.
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The Di Gara manuscript contains the Five Books of Moses and the Haftarot
(Phoo:o U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York)
A few days ago, a special event was held at the Hungarian Consulate in New York to mark the restitution. Attending were U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, Hungary’s ambassador to the U.S., and the president of the Rabbinical Seminary. Speakers stressed that this marked the conclusion of a long journey to restore a first-rank Jewish cultural artifact to its historical home.
American officials said they were proud of the investigators’ work and the cooperation with the Hungarian government that led to the manuscript’s discovery and return after decades.
“Di Gara” was printed in Venice in the late 16th century as a miniature edition: 162 pages of the Five Books of Moses and another 60 pages of Haftarot. Its historical and cultural value is immense—not only because it is one of the earliest printings of Jewish texts in Venice, but also due to its complex journey: from Venetian press, to the library of a great Italian rabbi, to the Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest, to being lost in the Holocaust, and finally to its official return to the Jewish community in New York.
Law enforcement officials emphasized that this restitution is not only a legal act but also a historical correction—returning to the Jewish community a cultural artifact looted during one of the darkest chapters in its history.
Both in the U.S. and in Hungary, the return of the book is seen as an example of successful cooperation between governments, law enforcement agencies, and Jewish cultural institutions. The Rabbinical Seminary in Budapest now plans to preserve the manuscript and display it to the public, alongside a special exhibition on its historical journey. Seminary rabbis expressed hope that its renewed exposure will deepen understanding of the spiritual richness of Hungarian Jewry and strengthen the global struggle to recover cultural treasures looted in history’s darkest times.