[Antoninus]

Before leaving Israel, the rabbis said they would ask to search Vatican storerooms for artifacts such as the huge golden menora that stood in the temple in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

I think the Vatican would know if they had this. It's mentioned in Procopius as having been taken by the Vandals after the sack of Rome to Carthage. From there, it was taken to Constantinople after the defeat of the Vandals by Justinian in 535 AD. If I remember my Procopius correctly, Justinian was convinced by Jews in Constantinople to send it back to Jerusalem as disaster had befallen every city where it had been kept.

At any rate, I seriously doubt that the Vatican has any of the temple artifacts. A few manuscripts by Maimonides, maybe.

[wideawake]

Correct - the Vatican has no Temple artifacts.

It has a large collection of Hebrew manuscripts.

Despite Procopius and Justinian, it is highly unlikely that the actual original menorah survived the Roman sack of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.