A number of Israeli antiquities are stuck at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach as officials struggle to recover them, according to Israeli news outlet Haaretz.
In 2019, Israel loaned a selection of national treasures to the U.S., including ancient ceramic candles, for a Hannukah celebration at the White House, which was then occupied by Trump. The artifacts were only meant to be kept for a few weeks but remained in the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and apparently ended up at Trump's Florida resort, according to the report.
The director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority at the time, Israel Hasson, said the organization had intended for an employee to pick up the fragile artifacts, rather than send them by mail, according to Haaretz.
"Then COVID broke out, and everything got stuck," Hasson said.
Haaretz reported that Israeli authorities then contacted Saul Fox, a prominent Jewish-American donor to the Israeli Antiquities Authority, to keep the items until they could be returned to Israel. Instead, however, the artifacts wound up being stored at Mar-a-Lago, and it remains unclear whether the former president is aware of this.
According to Haaretz, the current director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Eli Eskozido, has enlisted the help of several groups in an effort to recover the treasures, including the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Strategic Affairs Ministry, and a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel.
FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago last August, seizing dozens of boxes of documents and materials that Trump had taken home from the White House. He was federally indicted on charges that he mishandled classified documents in violation of the Espionage Act and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
