The published book entitled the Yanov Torah is written by Rabbi Erwin Herman, then director of the Pacific Southwest Council of the UAHC (now URJ). Herman describes how the Yanov Torah was brought to him by Dr. Emanuel Orlove (a pseudonym), who smuggled the Torah out of the Soviet Union when he emigrated to America in the 1980. Dr. Orlove also tells the history of how the pages were smuggled into the work camp, and how they were collected and reunited—to be stitched back into a whole Torah scroll.