Congregation Ner Shalom

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.

 


Congregation Ner Shalom
A Reconstructionist Synagogue
of Sonoma & Marin Counties


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