Thread by @incunabula

The real commercial value of most 18/19th cent. torah scrolls is $500-$1000 if bought individually, half that if bought in bulk. There are 1000s available for sale at any time. Why does the IRS routinely grant tax deductions of well over $10k per scroll?
reiss-sohn.de/en/lots/9454-A…

The scroll shown above was deservedly unsold on the last Reiss auction at a reserve of EUR 1500. It's incomplete (missing the first part of Genesis), but it's an Ashkenazi tradition scroll, which is vastly less common than the more usually found Sephardic ones from North Africa.

The wildly inflated valuations for these scrolls that the IRS have accepted - coupled with the vast numbers bought by a handful of wealthy Christian collectors & institutions - effectively means the US taxpayer has subsidized a small group of evangelical Christian billionaires.

At the same time, the activities of provenance researchers, motivated sometimes by anti-Christian animus, and taking offense on behalf of Jews about something most actual Jews are indifferent to, have made things worse - by implying that there is academic importance to these mss.

Overwhelmingly, 18th/19th cent. torah scrolls are uninteresting from an academic perspective. The vast majority will never be studied, and never be worthy of study. The exist in enormous numbers, with only tiny variations, which, even where they exist, are seldom of importance.

The are in many ways exactly analogous with 18th/19th century printed bibles - while there are a limited number of exceptions here and there, the vast majority are without interest, and worth only their handling cost and whatever premium is put on their decorative character.

[For those unfamiliar with how this works, it's not the receiving institution - church or church-affiliated organization - that receives the tax deduction, it's the wealthy - often billionaire level - evangelical donors who buy and then donate the scrolls that get the deduction.]

Here's another example of a torah scroll for sale: this time a Sephardic tradition scroll from the Middle East or North Africa, coming up for sale on auction in Israel. If it sells, it's likely to fetch very close to the $500 reserve price.
judaica.bidspirit.com/ui/lotPage/sou…

To be crystal clear: these scrolls generally cost between $500 and $1000 each to buy (at most). They are routinely appraised for donation & tax deduction purposes - using methods the IRS accepts as legitimate & justifiable - at a value per scroll of between $10 000 and $50 000+.