Lost Israeli antiquities said to reemerge in Trump’s Florida residence

Israel has discovered that a set of ancient pottery lamps that it lent to the White House for a temporary exhibit in 2019, and which it has been trying to recover, ended up in Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence of former US president Donald Trump, according to a report Tuesday.

According to Haaretz, the items, which are part of the ‘National Treasures’ collection of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), were shipped to the US for a Hanukkah candle-lighting event at the White House during Trump’s presidency, with the approval of the IAA director at the time, and were to be returned after a few weeks. Saul Fox, a major Jewish American donor to the Israel Antiquities Authority, was invited to the event.

The lamps did arrive in the US but were eventually not displayed in the White House, after US government officials raised concerns that they may have originated in the West Bank, and their display would have been in contravention of international antiquities law.

Israeli officials told Haaretz that the items remained in the US for a time since the IAA did not want to send them back to Israel on a regular flight or with an international shipping company for fear that they would be damaged.

The Authority planned for one of its employees to go to the US and recover the lamps, but then came the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the whole operation was put on hold. The artifacts were entrusted to Saul Fox in the meantime.

It is unclear how, in the subsequent three-and-a-half years, the lamps ended up in Trump’s Florida residence, but Israeli officials recently got confirmation of their presence there.

The report said current director of the IAA Eli Escozido has requested the assistance of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who was the Israeli ambassador to the US in 2019, and of former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman, in retrieving the artifacts.

Then-US president Donald Trump with, first lady Melania Trump, vice president Mike Pence, from left, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump and their children Arabella Kushner and Joseph Kushner, applaud during a Hanukkah reception in the East Room of the White House Wednesday, December 11, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Israel’s efforts have not been successful so far, the report said, without detailing why. It was unclear whether Trump himself is aware that the lamps are at his mansion.

Mar-a-Lago made headlines about a year ago after an FBI raid found hundreds of classified documents taken from the White House stored in boxes in a bathroom of the residence.

A source familiar with the case of the missing lamps told Haaretz that he would not be surprised if “the items that Israel is looking for were also eventually discovered in some bathroom there.”