The stolen Megillah
The stolen MegillahPolice Spokeswoman

A Scroll of Esther that was written in a Jew's memory and stolen last week from a synagogue in Tzrufa, a moshav located in the north, was found by Border Policemen.

At the end of last week, Border Police detectives arrested two suspects, illegal infiltrators from Tulkarm a PA-governed city, who broke into a warehouse in Beit Yitzhak in the Sharon region and stole work tools and pesticides.

The interrogation revealed that the suspects were apparently responsible for a number of burglaries and thefts in Israel and that the stolen property was being held in the home of one of the suspects in Tulkarm.

Following the information, and with the assistance of the Menashe Battalion this week, Border Police officers raided the house of one of the suspects and searched the site. They found a large store of property suspected of being stolen and worth tens of thousands of shekels. Another suspect in his 20's was arrested and taken for questioning.

As part of the search, the soldiers were surprised to discover a Scroll of Esther, written in memory of a deceased Jew. Upon return from the operation, they began a number of checks, concluding that the scroll was stolen last week from a synagogue in Tzrufa, on the Carmel coast.

Yesterday the scribe who wrote the Megillah and the rabbi of the village arrived at the Border Police base near the Eyal interchange, where soldiers returned the scroll.

The commander of the operation said that great efforts had been made to locate the place from which the scroll had been stolen and that he felt great satisfaction in returning the holy scroll written in memory of a village resident's father.

The community rabbi thanked the finders and said that the scroll had been in the synagogue for ten years and that he was greatly saddened when it was stolen. "The scroll has a very large financial and emotional value," he noted.