(JTA) – A Chabad center in Florida is offering $1,000 for the safe return of a dollar bill signed by the movement’s late rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
Rabbi Shlomo Ezagui of the Chabad House-Lubavitch of Palm Beach Gardens told reporters that the dollar bill was stolen during a break-in at the synagogue on the night of June 14.
A surveillance camera showed an intruder entering through a window and stealing charity boxes as well as cash from the center’s cash register. Hundreds of dollars were taken, Ezagui said, but only the dollar bill inscribed by the rebbe in 1987 matters to him.
Local police are investigating the incident.
In the late 1980s, Schneerson would give dollar bills to visitors who lined up for hours outside his Brooklyn headquarters to meet him. The bills are prized particularly by the rebbe’s followers since his death in 1994.
The Palm Beach Gardens Chabad center declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February.
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