Our Torah

The JCHC has been blessed with a very special Torah scroll. Our founder, Dr. Herman "Hy" Miller, discovered that some Torah scrolls from Czechoslovakia, rescued from Nazi destruction, were being restored in England and offered to congregations for an administrative fee of $1,000. (A scroll is never sold but rather is on permanent loan to the synagogue or entity entrusted with its care.) The JCHC sought contributions and soon had the amount needed to take custody of one of the 1,564 scrolls available, securing scroll number 1,552.

To learn the fascinating story of how these scrolls were collected, saved, restored, and distributed and see our scroll, read on.

Close–up of the Beit Yosef script

Plaque identifying our Czech Memorial scroll Number 1552

Certificate granting custody of Scroll 1,552 to the JCHC

How The Scrolls Were Saved

When the Munich Agreement was signed on September 29, 1938, Britain and France agreed to Hitler's demand to be given the German speaking border regions of Czechoslovakia, and the Germans marched in; by March of 1939, the entire country was under Nazi domination.

By 1940 more than 350 synagogues were shut down with their contents intact. In 1941 the first deportations started and the mass deportations of the Jews took place throughout 1942 and into January 1943.

It was deemed necessary to liquidate the communal and private Jewish property in the towns, including the contents of the synagogues. In 1942, as a result of instructions sent by Dr. Karel Stein of the Jὓdische Kiltusgemeinde in Prague, the communities of Bohemia and Moravia packed their Sifrei Torah, gold and silver filials, books, textiles and even pianos and sent them to the Jewish Museum in Prague. The volume was so great that no less than forty warehouses were required to house these treasures. As a result the inventory of the museum, which had been in existence since 1906, increased fourteen–fold. The Germans had this vast hoard catalogued by Jews, who were deported to Concentration Camps once the work was finished. Unfortunately very few of them survived.

Cataloguing items from synagogues at the Jewish Museum in Prague

It was once accepted that the accumulation of this vast hoard of Judaica was intended by the Nazis to become their museum to the extinct Jewish race. There is, however, no evidence that any such museum was ever planned. It is more likely that the Nazis had plans to sell them to finance the furtherance of the Third Reich.

After the defeat of Germany in 1945, a free and independent Czechoslovakia emerged, but it was a country largely without Jews, so the treasures housed in Prague remained untouched. After only three years of freedom there was a Communist coup on February 27, 1948 which, amongst other things, took over the Jewish Museum and warehouses, subsequently transferring some 1800 Torah Scrolls to a damp warehouse that had once been the sixteenth century Michle synagogue.

Michle Synagogue

In 1963 Eric Estorick, an American art dealer who was well-known for his many visits to Prague, came to the attention of the Czech government after he expressed some interest in a catalogue of Hebraica in a government-owned bookshop. He was approached by officials from Artia, the state corporation that had responsibility for trade in works of art, and was asked if he would be interested in buying some Torah Scrolls.

Unknown to him, the Israelis had been approached previously with a similar offer, but the negotiations had come to nothing. Estorick was taken to the Michle Synagogue where he was faced with wooden racks holding anything up to 2000 Scrolls. He was asked if he wanted to make an offer, and replied that he knew certain parties in London who might be interested.

Scrolls In The Michle Synagogue

On his return to London, he contacted a fellow American, Rabbi Harold Reinhart of the Westminster Synagogue, one of whose congregants, Ralph Yablon became the benefactor who put up the money to buy the Scrolls. First, Chimen Abramsky, who was to become Professor of Hebrew Studies at the University of London, was asked to go to Prague for twelve days in November 1963 to examine the Scrolls and to report on their authenticity and condition. On his return to London, it was decided that Estorick should go to Prague and purchase the majority of the Scrolls. After much negotiation, 1,564 Scrolls were purchased for ₤30,000. Two trucks laden with the Scrolls arrived at the Westminster Synagogue on February 7, 1964.

After months of sorting, examining, repairing and cataloguing each Scroll, the task of distributing them began, with the aim of getting the Scrolls back into the life of Jewish congregations across the world. The Memorial Scrolls Trust was established to carry out this task.

Permanent Exhibit at the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London

Our Torah was evaluated professionally in February, 2013 by Sofer on Site and was found to be in "good shape, given its age."

The scroll was written in Moravia (now Slovakia) 1863 — 1883; the script is Beit Yosef. Of the 1,564 scrolls acquired by the Memorial Scrolls Trust, 78 are "Orphan Scrolls," meaning their town of origin is not known. Our scroll is one of these. However, the absence of this information does not diminish in the slightest our deep feelings of connection and love we have for our Brothers and Sisters of that unknown congregation.

The Torah scroll has been patched and in some areas re–lettered, rendering it as "not kosher." Knowing that does not prevent us from reading from it during services. It is a symbol of our faith and our unity as a people and is a valuable unifying element to the JCHC today.