torah scroll
Our Torah was written sometime in the 1700s and resided in a small
town in Czechoslovakia called Sobeslav.  The
style of the writing is called "modified Beit Yosef". This Torah
is a rare type, written on about 50 deer skins (bellies). By Jewish
law, an animal cannot be killed only to be used for leather (etc.),
but for food. Since deer are kosher, but hard to sheHt (kill
in a kosher way), we imagine that the deer were not killed or eaten
by the Jews, only used by them for the Torah. The Torah stayed in
someone's home until the synagogue was built in the late 1800's.
One of the Presidents of the synagogue's Board of Directors was
named Emmanuel Frankenstein. He read from this Torah.
Almost everyone from Sobeslav who was Jewish died in the concentration
camps in World War II. During the Holocaust, the Nazi's stripped
the synagogues of anything valuable and sent many of these articles
to Prague. They were to be used in a 'Museum of an Extinct Race.'
Many of these objects are now in the State Jewish Museum in Prague.
After the war these items (including 1,564 Torah Scrolls from
places like Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia) lay piled in the disused
Michle Synagogue for more than 20 years. In 1964 these sacred Scrolls
were given to the care of the Westminster Synagogue in London. Then
came the monstrous task of cataloguing, inspecting and classifying
the scrolls according to their condition. Those that were deemed
usable, or could be made usable with not too much labor, were put
up for distribution to various Jewish agencies. Priority has been
given to Synagogues needing a Scroll for use in services. These
special Scrolls are now in use in many countries around the world.
Some of the collection remain at Westminster Synagogue, a permanent
memorial to the martyrs from whose synagogues they come; many of
them are distributed throughout the world, to be memorials everywhere
to the Jewish tragedy, and to spread light as harbingers of future
peace on earth; and all of them bear witness to the glory of the
holy Name.
When a request for a Torah is approved by the committee, a scroll
is handed over on a "permanent loan" basis. Our scroll came to us
by way of Etz Chaim, a now disbanded congregation in Novato. They
had made the request, which was approved, and had already received
the Torah when the congregation disbanded. When some of the members
of Etz Chaim joined our community, they told us about the Scroll
and made the arrangements for the transfer. That's how we came to
be the proud guardians of one of the Czech Memorial scrolls.
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