The Week
Israel briefly lent the U.S. treasured antiquities in 2019. They’re now reportedly at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.
Peter Weber, Senior editor – July 18, 2023
Boxes full of classified U.S. government documents weren’t the only items that improperly wound up at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after he left office, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported Tuesday. Unlike with the government secrets, though, it isn’t clear how antiquities belonging to Israel ended up at Trump’s Florida club, or whether Trump even knows they are there. Efforts by senior Israeli officials to retrieve the national treasures have so far been unsuccessful.
The Israeli antiquities include ancient ceramic candles that were lent to the U.S. from Israel’s national treasures collection in 2019 for a Hanukkah candle-lighting event at the White House, Haaretz reported. Israel Hasson, director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority at the time, approved the loan on the condition they be returned within weeks.
Instead of shipping the fragile items, “we wanted our man to go and bring it back, but then Covid broke out, and everything got stuck,” Hasson told Haaretz. The Antiquities Authority asked Saul Fox, a major Jewish-American donor to the Antiquities Authority, to hold on to the items until they could be returned safely to Israel, but “several months ago, Israeli authorities learned that the antiquities eventually ended up at” Mar-a-Lago, “where they still remain,” Haaretz reported.
Hasson’s successor, Eli Eskozido, has asked the Israeli government and Trump’s former U.S. ambassador to Israel to help get the items back, but without success. One source, referring to photos of Trump’s document boxes stacked in unusual locations around Mar-a-Lago, told Haaretz he wouldn’t be surprised if “the items Israel seeks are also eventually found in some bathroom.” You can read more about the case of this missing candles at Haaretz.