After almost 80 years, four rare prints from the 16th century have returned to their homeland. An edition of the Talmud, two Mishneh Torah volumes by Maimonides and a Sefer Mekor Chayim (a book dealing with old and new questions) had been stolen from the library of the National Rabbinical School in Budapest by National Socialists in 1944 and have now been returned to their rightful owners as part of a research project at the College of Jewish Studies (HfJS) dedicated to the provenance of books.
Dr Balázs Tamási, head of the Budapest library of the "Jewish Theological Seminary - University of Jewish Studies", and the vice-rectors of the seminary, Dr Gábor Balázs and Dr Tamás Biró, had travelled from Hungary especially for this purpose.
Before Tamási gave a presentation on the moving history of the library, but also of the seminary as a whole, as it is the oldest still existing rabbinical school in continental Europe, Philipp Zschommler, researcher of the project, which is headed by Rabbi Prof. Dr Birgit Klein, set the mood for the handover of the books. What may feel like a "charitable act" is instead a form of reparation for a crime that is truly irreparable in its cruelty and magnitude.
