A rare siddur said to be given and personally signed by the Rebbe was put up for sale in a public auction, drawing interest. But that quickly turned into controversy once it became clear the signature was likely a forgery. This casts doubt not only on the siddur’s credibility, but also on the auction and auction house.

By Anash.org reporter

A rare siddur given and personally signed by the Rebbe was put up for sale in a public auction, drawing significant interest. But that interest quickly turned into controversy once it became clear that the signature was not an original of the Rebbe, but much more likely a forgery. This has cast doubt not only on the credibility of the siddur being from the Rebbe at all, but also on the integrity of the entire auction and auction house.

The siddur in question is being sold by the Moreshet Auction House as part of a special Chabad auction for Chai Elul. On their website it is described as a:

“Siddur with the Rebbe’s handwritten signature on the leaf preceding the title page. This Siddur was given directly by the Rebbe in 1972 to Rabbi …, from Moshav Tidhar, Chabad Chassid from Israel, who was with the Rebbe many times during his lifetime (his photo with the Rebbe is attached).”

Chabad experts who examined the item and signature immediately noticed that it appeared extremely unusual and strongly resembled a forgery. As one individual who specializes in these matters, Y.E., told anash.org:

“There are so many things wrong with this signature. For example: the letter yud is missing – among hundreds of thousands of the Rebbe’s signatures, not one is missing a yud. Instead of an aleph, there are two samechs with a line. The forger copied a later signature, connecting the reish and vav, though in those years they were always separate. The nun at the end is thick instead of thin, and there’s an unusually large gap between the shin and aleph.”

In general, experts have pointed out that an authentic signature has an immediate, fluent look – written quickly, without stopping the pen. All of the Rebbe’s signatures from those years are very rounded. Here, however, the writing is hesitant; you can see the pen was lifted several times mid-word, suggesting this was traced slowly over a photograph of a signature.

This is in addition to the fact that such a thing has never been heard of before – that already in 5732 (1972) the Rebbe would sign a siddur.

“There are enormous glaring differences and it simply does not resemble the Rebbe’s authentic signatures from those years. This is a clear forgery,” Y.E. said.

According to Moreshet Auction House:

“All items of this auction that were given directly by the Rebbe were thoroughly checked by the auction house to determine who received them from the Rebbe. For most of them, we received additional evidence such as a photograph taken when the item was received and varied authenticity tests.”

However, in this case the picture provided simply shows a Chossid passing by the Rebbe and receiving a dollar in the later years – which has no connection to the siddur in question.

A representative of the auction house even wrote to one of the Chabad experts who contacted them, admitting that they had their own suspicions and supposedly confirmed it with a Chabad expert of their own. Still, despite the overwhelming evidence presented by multiple other Chabad experts showing the signature is not genuine, the siddur remains up for sale.

This is already the 19th Chabad auction held by Moreshet (several each year), with many original old prints of Chabad seforim, dollars, coins, kuntresim from the Rebbe, and even rare items such as a half-dollar coin, ten-dollar bill, and hundred-dollar bill.

Moreshet Auction House was founded in 2014 and is managed by the brothers Ozer and Yossi Zilbershlag. Leaving this siddur up for auction after several experts have determined its (non)authenticity raises serious questions about whether many of the other items being sold are truly from the Rebbe, and in general about the credibility of the auction house.

According to their own website:

“Moreshet is not responsible for the accurate detail, and most and foremost on the item itself, it’s originality, and of its accuracy of its ownership. …It will be upon the buyer to check on their own, or with help of experts of his choice.”

It should be noted that in recent years, another auction house once considered very prestigious began selling questionable items connected to the Rebbe – as reported by anash.org – and consequently lost much of its reputation. On the other hand, “Genazim” – after selling a supposed becher of the Frierdiker Rebbe and being notified of its dubious authenticity – immediately reimbursed the buyer, and to this day remains one of the most prestigious and reliable auction houses in the Jewish world.