local
Synagogue To Unveil,
Dedicate Czech Torah
Scrolls from Holocaust
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
Courtesy of Carol and Barry Stein
O ld York Road Temple-Beth
Am will display and rededi-
cate its three Torah scrolls sal-
vaged from Czechoslovakia during the
Holocaust on June 3, coinciding with the
Abington synagogue’s 75th-year jubilee.

Th e event also marks the 50th anni-
versary of the scrolls’ recovery and res-
toration and the 80th anniversary of the
deportation of Jews in the area.

Th e synagogue will unveil a perma-
nent exhibit in the main lobby of the syn-
agogue featuring a three-dimensional,
multimedia mural by local artist Murrie
Gayman, which will house replicas of
two scrolls. Th e third, smallest scroll will
be displayed in the center of the mural.

Th e scrolls are on permanent loan from
the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London,
where they, along with 1,561 other
Torah scrolls were rescued from Nazi
possession and restored at Westminster
Synagogue in London. All of the 1,564
scrolls salvaged by the Memorial Scrolls
Trust is marked with a little metal tag,
each with its own number.

“Th e whole idea, symbolically, phil-
osophically, is to breathe new life into
these Torah scrolls that, God forbid,
would have been destroyed,” Old York
Road Temple-Beth Am Rabbi Robert
Lieb said.

Th e synagogue acquired the scrolls in
1982 and 2004, though the scrolls are
likely 150 years old. Th e synagogue’s for-
mer Rabbi Harold Waintrup secured two
of the scrolls from the Memorial Scrolls
Trust, and the third was acquired when
Reform congregation Temple Beth Torah,
the scroll’s previous owner, merged with
Old York Road Temple-Beth Am in 2004.

Th e scrolls are originally from the
Czech towns of Louny, Svetla nad
Sazavou and Tabor, which were, during
World War II, part of Moravia and
Bohemia, Czech protectorates partially
annexed by Nazis.

Before the war, the Jewish presence
in the area was “precarious,” according
to the Memorial Scrolls Trust. Various
restrictions and expulsions meant the
Jewish population fl uctuated over the
centuries, but by the mid-1800s, Jews
lived comfortably in the area.

Aft er the Munich Agreement on Sept.

29, 1938, Sudetenland, which included
Moravia and Bohemia, was absorbed
into Germany. By the end of the year,
many synagogues and Jewish spaces
were destroyed in pogroms. Jewish busi-
nesses and homes that were spared were
destroyed in Nazi pillages in March 1939.

Th e initial survival of Jewish religious
objects was a result of irony: In 1942,
Czech Jews — by Nazi order — cataloged
salvaged scrolls and objects to be sent to
the Jewish Museum in Prague, which was
founded in 1906. Th e museum’s inventory
increased 14-fold as a result of the infl ux
of objects during the war, the Memorial
Scrolls Trust wrote on its website.

Nazis tasked Jews with cataloging the
materials until they fi nished the work,
at which point they were sent to die in
concentration camps. Th ough there is no
evidence to prove it, some speculate that
Nazis were planning to keep these mate-
rials to create “a museum of an extinct
race” following the Holocaust.

In 1948, the objects were transferred
to a diff erent warehouse following a
Communist coup in Czechoslovakia.

During the war, more than 60 Czech
synagogues were destroyed. Seventy-
eight thousand of the area’s 117,000 Jews
were murdered.

Old York Road Temple-Beth Am mem-
bers were able to see fi rsthand the mod-
ern eff orts to honor the Czech Jewish
community when they sent synagogue
delegations to Louny and Svetla in 2013
and 2016, respectively.

“When we visited ... they were so taken
by the fact that we had brought back a
Jewish presence to their town,” syna-
gogue member Carol Stein said of her
time in Louny.

In 2016, the Svetla mayor unveiled a
plaque honoring the Jewish victims of
the town that the synagogue had helped
to fund. Other towns honored the syn-
agogue and Jewish pop-
ulation of the area with
similar plaques and cere-
monies. “Th ey were so moved
Rabbi Robert Lieb holds the Svetla Torah rescued
and restored by the Memorial Scrolls Trust in
that they surprised us
London. with ‘Hatikvah’ [sung by
a choir],” congregant Jane
Th e mural shows a congregation cel-
Hurwitz said of the trip to Svetla.

Old York Road Temple-Beth Am ebrating Simchat Torah with the small
will similarly honor its Torahs, though center Torah. It also depicts a represen-
instead of an onyx plaque inscribed in tation of the townspeople lost to Nazi
English, Hebrew and Czech, they will pillages during the war.

“It has a very emotional background,”
display the mural by Gayman, who is
also Stein’s brother. Th e synagogue had a Gayman said. “Th e story of the Sefer
Torahs is very moving.” JE
similar dedication event in 2014.

Th e commissioned work took 500
hours to make over three months.

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