The artist Mana Katz (photo: official website, Hans Finn, CEO)
46-year-old Guy Iloz from Jerusalem was charged yesterday (Tuesday) in the Magistrate's Court with possession of suspected stolen property.
Iloz stole from Safed municipality between 2006-2007 three art paintings donated by the artist Mana Katz.
This is a thin indictment in which much is hidden than is visible.
He deals with one of the largest art theft cases in Israel and brings to mind the story of the robbery of the paintings of the artist Mana Katz from the Safed Municipality building about 17 years ago.
The indictment deals with three paintings by the painter Katz, which were seized in October 2018 in the hands of Iloz.
11 years after the theft, police found the paintings in the storage room of his house in Jerusalem without Eluz proving ownership of them.
Among the paintings were: a painting called "A Jew from the Ghetto" valued at $40,000, a painting called "King Solomon and His Wives" valued at $30,000 and another painting called "Masiya" valued at $60,000.
The filing of the indictment yesterday brought back to life a painful case of the theft of the famous Jewish painter's paintings.
The theft of the valuable works of art has never been solved, nor does the current indictment lead to the perpetrator of the robbery.
Mana Katz was born in 1894 in Ukraine.
Until the age of 16, he studied in a room and in a yeshiva, but then he turned to art studies in Vilnius and then continued at a school of thought craft and an art academy in Kiev.
At the age of 19, he arrived in Paris, where he spent most of his creative years.
His paintings from the Jewish town in Eastern Europe aroused great interest and most of his publicity came to him due to the paintings with a Jewish character.
Katz was also an avid collector and in his collection, along with works of art,
there were Jewish holy utensils and commandments.
In 1928 Mane visited Israel for the first time and then returned for several more visits.
In 1958, the municipality of Haifa gave him a house and a studio on the Carmel.
For years the building was used as the "Mana Katz Museum".
Several years ago the municipality closed the building and the museum has not been active since then.
The alleys of the city of Safed (photo: surfers' photos, Gil Brenner)
Katz did not leave the studio much, but sometimes he would come to Safed with the Association of Painters and Sculptors, and in the "Mana Katz Museum" there is even a picture he painted, in which you can see an alley in Safed.
The city, thanks to the charm of the ancient alleys, the synagogues, the pleasant summer weather and the clear air, becomes in those years the center of plastic art in Israel.
In the 50s and 60s of the last century, all the main artists were active in Safed and the city had the most important galleries in the country.
Katz held exhibitions of his works in Safed and donated his paintings to the city.
The plastic art center in Israel in those years.
Safed (photo: surfers' photos, Gil Brenner)
Between the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, Katz donated four of his works to Safed.
The paintings were hung in the "Beit Glitzenstein" museum.
This is a building erected in the 19th century for the governor of the city, on a large hill overlooking the old city, called "The Citadel".
He dedicated the paintings donated to Safed to the memory of his parents.
Mana died in 1962. Safed was still the center of bohemian life at that time.
The first show, written by Naomi Shemer, is shown at the "Small Hours" club in the Artists' Control.
The entertainment team also featured Sheika Levy and Gabri Banai.
The hotels in the city and on Mount Canaan are thriving.
However, since the beginning of the 1970s, Safed's prestige has declined.
The artists begin to descend from the mountain and migrate to the center of the country.
"Beit Glitzenstein" also no longer attracts curious art lovers.
The works are taken off the walls and wander from warehouse to warehouse.
At some point it was decided to take the paintings out of the warehouse and they were hung on the walls of the municipal offices.
These are very large paintings, with presence, that caught the eye.
As the status of Safed declined, the value of Mana Katz's paintings rose and rose.
In September 2005, four of his paintings were stolen from the city hall.
Until 2007, two more paintings by Mana Katz were stolen from the municipality, as well as another 16 valuable paintings that were owned by the municipality of Safed.
The police then estimated the value of all the stolen works at about NIS 20 million.
In 2008, one of Mana Katz's pictures, called "The Circus", was found while it was for sale at the Sotheby's auction house in Tel Aviv.
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The break-ins to the municipality were "clean", without any sign or clue left at the scene.
In the first burglary, in 2005, the burglars (or the burglar) entered the third floor and took four paintings by Mana Katz.
The thief saw that it was a good thing, realized that the municipality had not improved the building's security in the slightest and after some time another painting by Katz was stolen and in February 2007 it was joined by the sixth painting, the 'circus' painting that was seized at the time.
In the three cases the burglar did not leave behind any marks, did not break doors and windows, did not steal other photos and it seems that he knew exactly which photos he wanted.
The prosecutor's office then filed an indictment against Reuven Sade, who was the deputy mayor of Safed, claiming that he stole the paintings.
However, he was eventually convicted of much lesser charges.
It was a plea deal in which he was convicted of the crime of receiving something fraudulently under aggravating circumstances and in the second charge he was convicted of the crime of tampering with evidence and obstructing court proceedings.
The sentence he was sentenced to is 10 months of probation.
The plea agreement came after an expert from the defense determined that the stolen paintings were merely reproductions and all worth hundreds of euros, the price of the materials from which the pictures are made.
By the way, Noa Tarshish, who then managed the "Mana Katz Museum" and is considered the greatest expert of the artist's works, determined at the time that the "Circus" painting is authentic.
During the trial it became clear that the protection and treatment given by the municipality to the works of art donated to it bordered on criminal negligence.
The extent to which the treasury was underestimated in the corridors of the municipality was illustrated during the investigation where it became clear that no one knew which picture was stolen and when.
In the trial it turned out that the only person who remembered the stolen paintings in general was the cleaner in the municipality building, but she also could not say exactly which of the paintings was stolen and when.
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