We have on display a Memorial Sefer Torah which has
come to us from Czechoslovakia. It is one of 1,564
scrolls seized from desecrated synagogues by the
Nazis. It is believed they were intended to be used
and displayed after the war in a museum featuring
'relics of the extinct Jewish race'. These scrolls
were found in piles in the disused Michle Synagogue
in Prague after World War II. In 1963 they were
purchased from the Czech Government and taken to
Westminster Synagogue in London where special racks
were built to house them.
While our former president and his wife were in
London they learned of the scrolls from his home
city of Prague. They saw them at the Westminster
Synagogue and met the scribe, David Brand, who had
miraculously arrived at the door of that synagogue
at the right time and asked for work. Naturally,
the scribe was greeted with open arms and for 27
years he and a team of people painstakingly hand
wrote, corrected and made usable any of the scrolls
which could be saved.
These repaired scrolls are now to be found all over
the world, more often than not in small communities
which find it difficult to buy scrolls due to lack
of funds. It was not feasible to fully restore our
Scroll, possibly fire-damaged, and so it is not used
by us in worship. We have it on display in memory
of the millions of Jews who died as a result of The
Holocaust.
Topic: The oldest Synagogue In Australia (Read 2588 times)