Wednesday, April 17, 2024
During Kristallnacht (Nov. 9. 1938), also known as “the Night of Broken Glass,” more than 1,400 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish businesses across Germany were torched by the Nazis.
That night, in Hamburg, 14-year-old Isaac Schwartz saw a pyre of Torah scrolls and other religious items left unattended. He doused the flames and attempted to recover the holy objects, yielding only a single Torah scroll.
Isaac buried the scroll in the ground, and it lay there for the duration of the Holocaust. After the scroll was unearthed, much of it was rendered unusable. For 78 years the scroll lay in disrepair, but in 2016, a sofer, or scribe, restored the faded letters and replaced parts of the parchment that were beyond repair over a period of 18 months.
The restored Torah is now read in synagogues all over the world, hopping from community to community as a gesture of unity that spans continents, cultures and generations. The scroll travels in a blue cloth inscribed with a dedication to those who died in the Holocaust and in celebration of the revival of Jewish life and Torah study.
Source: The Chabad Center for Jewish Life
In observance of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religion, the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Merrick invited congregants to attend services, fast and atone for their sins. What was different this year, however, was the Torah from which prayers were read.
During the Chabad’s Yom Kippur services on Oct. 8 and 9, Cantor Nissen Pewzner read from the Kristallnacht Torah, a historic Torah that was rescued from a fire during Kristallnacht, or, “the Night of Broken Glass,” in Germany in 1938. During Kristallnacht, the Nazis torched more than 1,400 synagogues and 7,000 Jewish businesses.
That night, Isaac Schwartz, a 14-year-old boy from Hamburg, was able to recover a single Torah scroll that was set aflame. Eight decades later, the Torah serves as a symbol of light surviving in spite of the dark, said Pewzner.
The scroll was fully refurbished in 2016, and since then has been used for religious services in synagogues all over the world.
“There are many historic Torahs, but this Torah is a living artifact that we can use,” Pewzner said. “It survived such darkness and tragedy, and to have the opportunity to read and learn from it on Yom Kippur is tremendously exciting.”
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