Judea Reform Congregation is honored to host Czech Memorial Torah Scroll #613—an auspicious number! As explained by the Memorial Scrolls Trust, which has loaned this scroll to our community, this is one of 1,564 scrolls formerly belonging to communities in Bohemia and Moravia (modern-day Czech Republic) which were decimated in the Shoah. In 1948, these scrolls were gathered and stored in a humid warehouse in Michle, Prague. In 1964, British donors arranged for them to be transported to Westminster Synagogue in London, and the Memorial Scrolls Trust was formed.
The Trust determined that the scrolls’ legacy would best be continued not in a museum of all the scrolls, but by loaning them out to Jewish communities worldwide. Due to their age and their harsh treatment in the previous two decades, however, almost all of them required repair before they could be loaned out for congregational use. That work continues until today at the hands of a select group of scribes.
Memorial Scroll #613 likely dates to the early eighteenth century, and hails from Moravia in the town of Hodonin, home to roughly 700 Jews before the Shoah. Congregation Bamidbar Shel Ma'alah in southern California and the Congregations of Shaare Shamayim in Philadelphia also host Memorial Scrolls from Hodonin.
According to the records of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, Judea Reform received its scroll in 1967. Sadly, due to its advanced age, fragility, and the natural deterioration of its ink and parchment, the scroll is no longer used in the Torah service every week. However, Judea Reform continues to use it for various rituals, especially Yizkor services.
Even so, the scroll lives in a display case in the lobby of our synagogue building, a silent reminder of our heritage and the many before us who revered and respected this Torah. To honor its previous custodians who perished, the scroll continues to be used in Shoah remembrance services. As Rabbi Soffer remarked on January 25, 2020, on the Shabbat preceding the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz:
Every Torah scroll has a life, which when known and made known teaches about the communities who—machazikim ba—cling to the Torah, remembering their past and loving their future enough to teach from it…
By reading this Torah, we partake in the great mitzvah of bringing Torah into Life.
By reading this Torah, this Shabbat, we name that we, in this community, live within the great narrative of our people, which has for as long as we have lived, held on to the Torah, for our dear lives.
We invite all visitors to our community to stop for a moment before this Torah and remember those who came before us.
This page was written by former Judea Reform congregant Joanna Homrighausen. Special thanks to Rabbi John Friedman, Sofer Neil Yerman, and Jeffrey Ohrenstein of the Memorial Scrolls Trust for providing information
Czech Memorial Torah Scroll #613
