The congregation of Sinai Temple is honored to have been chosen to receive on loan one of the Czech Torahs from Ivančice in Moravia to Prague during the Shoah.
MST#592 was scribed in the late 19th century and originated in Ivančice, a town in South Moravia, Czechoslovakia from a synagogue thought to have been built as early as 956. Through the years, the Jewish community of Ivančice flourished, even supporting a Yeshiva from which many noted scholars evolved.
The Memorial Scrolls Trust has allocated Czech scrolls to synagogues and organizations around the world.
During World War II, a large refugee camp was constructed in Ivančice and by 1942 the entire Jewish population had been deported to death camps. In 1942, members of Prague’s Jewish community devised a way to bring the religious treasures from the deserted communities and destroyed synagogues to the comparative safety of Prague. The Nazis were somehow persuaded to accept the plan and more than 100,000 artifacts were brought to the Museum. Among them were about 1,800 Torah scrolls. Each was meticulously recorded, labelled and entered on a card index by the Museum’s staff with a description of the Scroll and the place it had come from. Temple Beth Rishon’s Holocaust Torah is inscribed with number 431.
After the war, this massive collection of Jewish scrolls, torah covers and artifacts were transferred to the ruined synagogue at Michle outside Prague.
In 1963, on a visit to Prague, an American art dealer living in London was asked by a state official if he would like to buy some Torah Scrolls. Visiting the Michle Synagogue he saw wooden racks holding about 1,800 Scrolls. He returned to London and contacted a fellow American, Ralph Yablon, who in turn contacted his rabbi, Rabbi Harold Reinhart, of the Westminster Synagogue, and offered to put up the money to buy the Scrolls. After their authenticity and condition were verified, an offer was made for the purchase. Two trucks crammed with 1,564 Torah Scrolls arrived at the Westminster Synagogue in February and March of 1964, and the Memorial Scrolls Trust was established to oversee their care, restoration and allocation to synagogues around the world.
