Follow Dec. 17, 2020 In the Hebrew manuscript collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, among the formulas for potions – both medicinal and magical – hides an unusual document. If you study it you might learn how to rob a house in broad daylight, even if the owners are there watching. It turns out that thieves in the 15th century – Jewish ones, too – brought with them all sorts of weird stuff. “The thieves that enter houses take with them the hand of a dead man,” the manuscript reads. “They put it in the middle of the house and then all the household members tremble and fall asleep.”