Menachem Youlus is a Baltimore rabbi and Torah scribe who falsely claimed he had rescued Holocaust-era Torah scrolls from Eastern Europe, selling the scrolls at inflated prices. On August 24, 2011 he was arrested on charges of mail fraud and wire fraud, and on February 2, 2012 he pleaded guilty.
Youlus claimed he had personally traveled to Eastern Europe and beyond to recover Torah scrolls lost or hidden during the Holocaust, including some from the sites of concentration camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. He said that during his travels he had been beaten and imprisoned, and called himself the "Jewish Indiana Jones" during a Torah dedication in 2004. In court he admitted that from 2004 to 2010 he had made up the stories of his travels; he had never been to the places he had claimed. The Torahs he sold did not have the claimed provenance.
Youlus created the non-profit foundation "Save a Torah", purportedly to finance his travels and the restoration of the rescued Torah scrolls, dedicated to rescuing and restoring Torah scrolls hidden, lost or stolen during the Holocaust and other world upheavals and placing them in Jewish congregations. Instead he sold Torah scrolls he had obtained by other means, partly at inflated prices. According to prosecutors, he defrauded the charity and its donors of $862,000.
Congregations that have acquired Torah Scrolls from Save a Torah include New York's Central Synagogue and Congregation Kol Ami of Frederick.
In January 2010, the Washington Post reported that many Torahs purportedly rescued from Holocaust sites in Eastern Europe appeared to be old Torah scrolls mostly acquired when American congregations closed, and resold at high prices because of Youlus's unsubstantiated assertion that they were rescued from Holocaust-related sites. Similar questions were reported in an April 14, 2010 New York Times article concerning a Torah at New York's Central Synagogue.
On August 24, 2011, Youlus was arrested and charged with fraud. According to prosecutors, he made up the stories about the Torahs' origins. Youlus was also accused of taking more than $340,000 of the $1.2 million raised by Save a Torah, including $145,000 or more for his personal use. Through an attorney, Youlus initially denied the allegations. He later pleaded guilty to fraud, having used monies from the fraud to cover his personal expenses. On December 17, 2012, Youlus began serving a 51-month prison sentence at the federal correctional institution in Otisville, New York. Convicted of two counts of mail and wire fraud in a Manhattan federal court on October 11, 2012, Youlus is slated to be incarcerated until August 26, 2016.