Brooklyn auction house suspends sale of 19th-century document that Romanian Jews say was stolen in the Holocaust

(JTA) — An auction house in New York suspended the sale of a document that a Jewish community in Romania said had been stolen from it.

Kestenbaum & Company, a Brooklyn firm that has specialized in the care of rare Judaic material culture for 25 years, on Wednesday pulled off its catalog what the Jewish Community of Cluj says is a 19th-century ledger from its Jewish burial society.

“The handwritten register has great value as a historical document, covering over 50 years of the history of the Orthodox Jewish Community, right from the year of the founding of the Society in 1836, but it is also a valuable art object, due to its exceptional aesthetic presentation,” the Jewish community wrote in a statement published Monday