Haftarah scroll seized from Rio criminal den

RIO DE JANEIRO — A Jewish ritual object that initially was believed to be a Torah scroll is seized from criminals during a police raid of a Rio slum.

Jewish representatives were called Monday to identify the object, which was determined to be a sefer Haftarah, or readings from the books of the prophets that go with each section of the Torah and is read on the Sabbath following the Torah reading. It was found last Friday at a drug dealer’s bunker in the Parada de Lucas shantytown in the midst of an abundant amount of ammunition “that could shoot down a helicopter,” reported the newspaper Extra.

“This is not a Torah. We have found the signature of a Rabbi David Basri, a great Sephardi spiritual leader of the Sucat David community in Jerusalem. Usually this type of sefer [holy book] was given as a gift to large community donors,” says Rabbi Mendy Aboutboul, of the Edmond J. Safra Ipanema synagogue.

The sefer Haftarah was found among some 1,000 bullets — including 350 powerful 30-caliber ones — at a basement hidden under a secret passageway between two shacks revealed when some 20 police officers raided the slum in an armored tank.

“Taking into consideration the religious content of the object seized during the raid, it will be sent to specialists for a descriptive criminal investigation with the proper care that a holy book deserves, and then it will be returned to the Jewish community to keep in its custody,” says Rachel Glatt, legal representative of the Rio Jewish federation.

— JTA