Boro Park Bachur Reunited with Tefillin Following Relentless Shmira Work

by YS Gold 

After days of relentless forensic work by Boro Park Shmira, a young Boro Park bachur was grateful to be reunited with his tefillin on Friday afternoon. 

The saga began on Tuesday evening, when he stopped by to peruse seforim at the used seforim store, 'Pinters' on 14th Avenue, on his way home from yeshiva. 

He put his tefillin on top of a pile of seforim and set about browsing the selection. When he was ready to leave a few minutes later, his precious tefillin were gone. Panicked, he called his father, who called Shmira to the scene. 

A helpful neighbor provided the footage that would serve as the crucial starting point in the search. It showed a man picking up the tefillin bag and looking through it. He then put a dollar in the store’s gate—as though paying for just another Sefer on the table—and headed off down 14th Avenue. 

“The Shmira members were relentless,” the grateful father related to BoroPark24. “They followed the man—using surveillance footage from many area stores—down 14th ave all the way to a Shul on the outskirts of Boro Park, whose Ruv recognized the man in the video,” he said. 

The Ruv shared that the man was a very nice person who frequented the shul, and this must have been a misunderstanding. He mentioned that he worked at an establishment in the area—and that was where the Shmira team resumed their work. 

Speaking with the manager of the establishment, he said that the man was a model employee and a good man, who actually sleeps in an apartment owned by the establishment. He went to the man’s room, where he found the tefillin sitting on the table, and brought them out to the waiting members. Shortly thereafter, they were in the hands of their overjoyed owners. 

The Shmira member who led the search told BoroPark24, “this story thankfully ended well. But we have been called with similar stories—including another pair tefillin that were taken at this very same location—that did not end as well. We want to alert the public to be vigilant. There have been stories of car burglars who broke into vehicles just to take out a pair of Tallis and tefillin… not even knowing their value. Vigilance now can save a lot of heartache later,” he said.