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A Special Torah
by Corey Larkin
In the Jewish tradition,
when you reach the age of 13, you become Bar
Mitzvah. This means you
take on the responsibility of having an active role in the
Jewish community.
Today during my Bar Mitzvah ceremony, I will read from the
Torah, which contains the Five Books of Moses, the first
section of the Jewish
Bible,
The Torah I am reading from today has a very special
history. Our congregation,
Chavurat Aytz Chayim, which means Tree of Life, received
this in 1977, just a few
years after the congregation formed under Rabbi Mark Golub.The
Torah was loaned
by the Westminster
Synagogue in
London, and is one
 of
1,564 Torah scrolls saved from Nazi Europe. This
Torah
was written in 1900 for a Jewish congregation in a small
town called Milevsko in
Czechoslovakia. During the Nazi occupation of this area of
Czechoslovakia, known
as Moravia, the Germans
sent most of the Jewish population to concentration
camps, virtually wiping
out the entire Jewish community.
The Jews of Milevsko, a town in Bohemia located south of
Prague, had
lived in there since the mid-1600s. They were deported to
Terezin and Tabor, (concentration
camps) during Nov. 12-16, 1942.
As they decimated communities in Czechoslovakia, the Nazis
collected
Jewish religious articles that they were going to display in
an exhibit to be known
as ``Relics of the Extinguished Race." The religious objects
were sent to Prague,
when Jews there were ordered to sort and classify the items.
The work was done in
the town of Michle.
When the Allies defeated the Nazis, the Jewish Museum in
Prague took control of the religious items. But they
remained deteriorating in the basement in
the synagogue as Jewish leaders tried to figure out a way to
protect them.
In
1963, a London arts dealer contacted a Jewish historian,
Chimen
Abramsky, who looked at the scrolls. As he examined them,
several items were discovered,
including a note that fell from a scroll that said, "Please
God, help us in
troubled times," One Torah had spots of blood on it.
That year, with the help of Abramsky and the art dealer, the
scrolls were
sent to Westminster Synagogue, which oversaw the restoration
of the Torahs. More
than 500 of the restored Torahs have since been loaned to
congregations across the
world, including Israel, South Africa and Germany. One of
the Czech Torahs resides
in the White House, presented to President Jimmy Carter
after he addressed
the World Jewish Congress in 1977.
I
see this as a great honor to be reading from such an old and
special
Torah. It is very meaningful to me that this Torah survived
poverty, war and deterioration.
So today, when I read from it, we should remember the Jews
of Milevsko. |
