Former US President Donald Trump. Photo: Reuters/Jonathan Drake

Israel is reportedly struggling to obtain the return of several highly valuable antiquities, including a Hanukkah menorah made from clay, from former US President Donald Trump’s Mar a Lago resort in Florida.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the artifacts were delivered to Washington, DC, in 2019, with the menorah intended for use at a White House event celebrating Hanukkah. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the following year derailed plans to secure the artifacts return to Israel and they remained at the White House before apparently winding up at Trump’s home.

Eli Eskozido, the head of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), told Haaretz that he had pleaded for assistance from both the Israeli government and David Friedman, whom Trump appointed as US Ambassador to Israel, to no avail.

The IAA then asked Saul Fox — a US businessman who donates to the agency — to safeguard the items, by which time they had been moved to Mar a Lago. Haaretz did not say how the artifacts made their way to the resort or whether Trump himself was aware of their presence.

“It’s too bad Israel can’t call on Indiana Jones as a final recourse,” the magazine Rolling Stone commented. “These items clearly belong in a museum, and Mar-a-Lago a museum is not.”

Separately, Trump confirmed on Tuesday that he had been notified by Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special counsel, that he is the target of an investigation into the attempt by some of his supporters to violently overturn the results of the Nov. 2020 election by rioting on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment,” Trump posted on his Truth Social account.