The Collector

012

Shlomo Moussaieff, whose huge apartments on Grosvenor Square in London and on the 14th floor of the Daniel Hotel in Herzliya, Israel, are stuffed with important Biblical antiquities, lives on the edge of legality. Moussaieff (pictured) was to be the government’s star witness in the ongoing criminal trial in Jerusalem in which an antiquities collector and a prominent antiquities dealer now stand in the dock charged with forging and dealing in forged antiquities. As a witness, Moussaieff fizzled. Worse, he turned on the government! Asked how an inscribed wine decanter that may have been used by the priests in Solomon’s Temple got from Jerusalem to his London apartment without an export license, Moussaieff replied, “It had wings.”

The 83-year-old is not afraid of the law. What if they charge him with smuggling? Are they going to put him in jail? “So what?” he testified, “I will pay a fine. Thank God I have it.”

After calling him as its witness, the government is now distancing itself from Moussaieff. According to an article in the Israeli newspaper Globes, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) claims that Moussaieff’s testimony is fabricated and stems from “fantasies.” The IAA is especially sensitive about Moussaieff’s 013testimony concerning IAA director Shuka Dorfman. According to the Globes article, Moussaieff testified that “for many years he had a close relationship with Dorfman.” In Moussaieff’s words, “[Dorfman] would come to me and say that he is fed up at the Antiquities Authority and that he wants me to find him a position in the civilian sector and he has connections in the Philippines and Indonesia.”

According to the Globes article, Dorfman refuted these statements of Moussaieff. The reporter then went back to Moussaieff with Dorfman’s refutation. Moussaieff told the reporter: “Why should I invent? Why should I incriminate him? Shuka [Dorfman] was my friend; he was contact me daily. He would come, we would eat, everything. He came as a friend, without any official position. He would tell me how it was in the artillery (in the army) and asked that now that he is going to retire if I could arrange for a job or a business.”

Dorfman, on the other hand, claims his contacts with Moussaieff revolved around his effort to get Moussaieff to bring his collection for exhibition and study in Israel.

In the 1990s an effort was made to bring items from Moussaieff’s London collection to Israel for a museum exhibit. Moussaieff was willing, provided only that the Israeli authorities would allow him to take the items back to London after the exhibit. The Israeli authorities refused, and the exhibit never materialized. But efforts to induce Moussaieff to bring his collection to Israel have continued—so far, unsuccessfully.

To some extent the IAA seems to take contradictory positions. As the Globes article states, “Dorfman thinks there is no basic difference between antiquity robbers and those that collect stolen antiquities.” The IAA would like to put the now-legal antiquities dealers out of business and make it illegal to trade in antiquities, as it is in Jordan, Egypt and Turkey (although the trade continues to thrive there). On the other hand, Dorfman would like Moussaieff’s treasures to be available to the Israeli public and scholars.

Many in the scholarly community essentially agree with Dorfman regarding the equation of collectors and looters. Such scholars will have nothing to do with collectors because they think that collecting fuels looting. But, unlike Dorfman, they are willing to avert their eyes from anything that is uncovered by looting, regardless of how important it may be.

No one who understands the situation, however, contends that restrictions on antiquities dealers or collectors will eliminate or even reduce looting. And what do you do when an important piece comes onto the antiquities market? Shun it?

Amir Ganor, the director of the IAA’s looting unit, told Globes reporter Yitai Rom that collectors are the “triggers that ignite the entire process [of archaeological looting].” Yet he visited Moussaieff in London to try to convince him to bring items from his collection to Israel.

Moussaieff does not believe it is possible to stop looting. For this, there is widespread agreement. Moussaieff embarrasses the authorities by asking, “How many looters have been caught?” The number is infinitesimal. Yet Ganor himself admits that “in the territories [the West Bank] hardly no antiquities are left to be found.” Even inside Israel, the Globes article says, “Antiquities thieves are not bothered by the difficulties of digging in Israel.” The 014IAA estimates that between 170 and 200 incidents of illegal excavation occur in Israel each year, mainly around Jerusalem.

Moussaieff thinks we should “cooperate with the looters. If you can’t beat them, join them.”

The result of the pursuit of collectors, Moussaieff claims, is to deprive Israel of important artifacts that illuminate history. The law, to the extent that it has any effect, sends important artifacts to countries other than Israel. Even the IAA’s attorney Yoram Bar-Sela recognizes that “[t]here is no problem smuggling antiquities out of Israel. You take a piece, put it in your suitcase, and leave. No dog will smell it. We work with a whole lot of intelligence information and occasionally catch a smuggler.”

But much of the loot, especially from the West Bank, no longer comes into Israel. This is a result of a 2002 law that requires every archaeological item imported into Israel from the territories to have a permit; antiquities dealers are forbidden to acquire objects without this approval. And obviously if the artifact is looted, you can’t get a permit for it. So these looted artifacts are taken to Jordan, rather than Israel, and from there to ports unknown.

As a result of the vilification of collectors, they are increasingly wary of making their artifacts available to scholars for study and museums for exhibits. As Moussaieff says, “I don’t want to be called a thief, pilferer and all that.”—H.S.

Shlomo Moussaieff, whose huge apartments on Grosvenor Square in London and on the 14th floor of the Daniel Hotel in Herzliya, Israel, are stuffed with important Biblical antiquities, lives on the edge of legality. Moussaieff (pictured) was to be the government’s star witness in the ongoing criminal trial in Jerusalem in which an antiquities collector and a prominent antiquities dealer now stand in the dock charged with forging and dealing in forged antiquities. As a witness, Moussaieff fizzled. Worse, he turned on the government! Asked how an inscribed wine decanter that may have been used by the priests in […]