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Rabbi's Irreplaceable Prayer Shawl, Ritual Boxes Stolen From Van

By Alisa Hauser | June 14, 2017 6:09am | Updated on June 14, 2017 8:38am
 Yosef Moscowitz, a rabbi, filed a police report after ritual prayer items were stolen from his car.
Yosef Moscowitz, a rabbi, filed a police report after ritual prayer items were stolen from his car.
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Yosef Moscowitz

WICKER PARK — A thief smashed a parked van's window and stole a leather pouch containing prayer shawls and other religious objects belonging to a Wicker Park rabbi over the weekend.

"Would the thug please return my tefillin," Yosef Moscowitz, a rabbi and leader of the Bucktown Wicker Park Chabad Center posted on Facebook on Sunday.

Though Moscowitz used an emoticon and marked his mood as "frustrated" in the social media update, he said Tuesday that he would just be relieved to have the irreplaceable spiritual and sentimental items back, no questions asked.

The thief "probably took the bag because it looked like it could have a laptop, or maybe jewelry in it. It's a leather pouch," Moscowitz said.

The blue leather pouch that Moscowitz had left on the passenger seat of his family's van contained a tallis, or prayer shawl, and a set of tefillin, which are two black leather boxes holding Torah verses written on parchment by a scribe.

The boxes, which have leather straps, are placed on the wearer's arm and forehead during morning weekday prayers. Marc Chagall's famous painting, "The Praying Jew," depicts a man wearing tefillin.

Moscowitz, who is is his mid-30s, received the tallis and tefillin several years ago as a bar-mitzvah gift from his grandfather, who inked the verses on parchment.

"It's not replaceable," Moscowitz said.

Earlier in the day Friday, before Shabbat started at sundown (tefillin is not worn from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday) Moscowitz said he'd driven his center's 2013 Nissan van to the Jewish Relief Agency to pick up food to distribute to people in need, and while he typically would not have his tefillin with him, he had brought it along to do some praying at the agency.

"I went out to pick up the food and because of the hustle and bustle of Friday, I forgot to take the pouch out of the van," Moscowitz said

Moscowitz told DNAinfo that he'd parked his car in the 2000 block of West North Avenue, behind the Chabad, which is at 1630 N. Milwaukee Ave.
 
Officer Ana Pacheco, a Chicago Police spokeswoman, confirmed a police report had been filed. No one is in custody, Pacheco said Tuesday.