Holocaust Memorial Scroll #80
Housed in our Temple's lobby is Torah scroll MST#80 from the Memorial Scrolls Trust.
"Written in 1890, it was used in the synagogue in Prostejov, located in central Czechoslovakia until July 1939 when German troops closed down the House of Worship and shipped all of the its religious articles to the Jewish Museum in Prague... Our Torah was among the hundreds of scrolls that remained in the basement of the museum in Prague for 25 years until February 1964 when an art dealer belonging to the Westminster Synagogue in London was able to arrange with the authorities for the shipment of 1564 scrolls to his synagogue for safekeeping, repair and restoration... Records indicate that all the Jews of that town, as well as all those who handled the the Torah in Prague, were destined for extermination. The Torah survived; the people who cared for it did not.
This scroll join our congregation on August 20, 1985 with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Saperstein of Silver Spring, Maryland in honor of the grandchildren Alan, Peter and Jeremy Baggish, and Amy and Craig Saperstein. Alan read from the scroll in his Bar Mitzvah on August 30, and the scroll again provided instruction for us at our Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services... It is on permanent loan, assigned to us from the Czech Memorial Scroll Trust, meaning that if ever a Jewish community were reconstituted in Prostejov, they could reclaim it... with its new covers made by Connie Winkelstein. Our Torah has come back to life for our children and for all of us. May it continue to be a 'Tree of Life' for us; may we be worthy of the honor to have it in our midst."
Arnold S. Task, October 8, 1985
Come by and see our Torah in our lobby and read more about it. We hope it provides learning to all who visit it.
