Simchat Torah.
Mr. Rapaport was friendly
with members of the local
Jewish War Veterans, who
told him about the Holocaust
Memorial Center. From his
1988 trip to Poland, he do-
nated other Torahs, some of
which are more than 500
years old, to his synagogue,
other Holocaust centers and
the U.S. Air Force Academy
in Washington, D.C.
The Memorial Center
plans to display its Torah at
a later date.
The Sefer Torah at Bais
Chabad of Farmington Hills
does not bear a history of
agony, but was created
specifically to prevent harm
from coming to the Jewish
people.
The Torah was commis-
sioned following a call from
the Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Rabbi Menachem Mendel
Schneerson, who declared
that "by having a letter in
his or her name in the
Torah, each Jew would be
protected," says Rabbi
Chaim Bergstein of Bais
Chabad of Farmington Hills.
It also was created in
memory of Rabbi Bergstein's
grandfather, Rabbi
Avrohom Shlomo Bergstein,
and his uncle, Moshe Chaim
Avrohom, of Russia.
The bespectacled Moshe
Chaim was a dedicated stu-
dent, so devoted to God that
he once stayed in synagogue
following Yom Kippur, long
after everyone else left to
break the fast. He remained
because he was inspired by a
story his teacher once told
him in which a student
lingered at the synagogue
because he believed it should
never be devoid of study.
Faced with reports of the
Nazi invasion, Moshe could
not decide whether to con-
tinue his yeshiva studies or
flee the country. His mother
told him, "Go where your
heart tells you," so he stayed
at the yeshiva. He was later
among 150 students shot in
a matter of minutes.
Rabbi Bergstein's grand-
father, who died in 1978,

was a rabbi who "liked
things clear and wanted
things very, very basic," his
grandson says. "When it
came to learning, he believ-
ed there was no such thing
as superficially knowing
something."
Rabbi Avrohom Shlomo
Bergstein came to the
United States after a mem-
ber of the Joint Distribution
Committee noticed his pic-
ture, taken at Displaced
Persons Camp. Though for-
bidden by the Nazis, Rabbi
Avrohom Bergstein had kept
his beard throughout the
war, prompting the JDC
worker to remark, "I want
that man for my rabbi."
Not long after his parents
expressed an interest in
creating a Torah in memory
of Moshe and Rabbi
Avrohom Bergstein, Rabbi
Bergstein learned of the
Rebbe's call to create Torahs
to protect Jews from what he
feared was an impending
disaster. The two proposals
were combined.
"A Sefer Torah, a Safer
World," became the project
theme. Students stopped
passersby at shopping malls,
asking them for their Heb-
rew names. Their goal:
304,805 names — the
number of words in the
Torah.
Rabbi Bergstein was fa-
miliar with the difficulty
such a campaign could incur.
Earlier, while soliciting
names for a Torah to be
commissioned in the names
of Jewish children, he had
gone door-to-door in local
suburbs. "I even got people
telling me, 'I gave at the of-
fice,' " he recalls.
The Torah project was not
a fund-raiser, Rabbi Berg-
stein stresses. Sometimes
they did receive donations,
amounting to about a penny
a name when the total was
counted. "Getting the names
was most important," Rabbi
Bergstein says.
Once the names were col-
lected — filling some 30,000
pieces of paper —they were
placed in "boxes and boxes

and boxes" at the syn-
agogue, Rabbi Bergstein
says. It took one-and-a-half
years to gather all the
names, which included
Detroiters and their
relatives throughout the
world.
One girl alone collected
12,000 names.
The Torah, written by a
sofer (scribe) from B'nei
B'raq, Israel, had a few
rocky roads to travel before
it came to rest safely at Bais
Chabad. Parts were even
lost when they arrived at a
New York airport, where
Rabbi Bergstein waited un-
til 5:30 a.m. until they were
found.
A Sefer Torah is written in
sections which are stitched
together.
As the Bais Chabad of
Farmington Hills project
was being completed, the
Rebbe asked for an accoun-
ting of names collected for
the Torah. That day, Israel
bombed the nuclear reactor
in Iraq.
"Only now do we see how
important that event was,"
Rabbi Bergstein says.
The siyyum (completion of

Prague, with a Jewish com-
munity dating back to 1347.
Eleven square miles in size,
Kolin was once home to
Czechoslovakia's second-
largest Jewish population,
following Prague.
The Nazis used Kolin as a
collection point for Jews be-
ing sent to death camps.
Two-thousand, two hundred
and two Jews passed
through Kolin, of whom
2,098 perished, including
475 natives of Kolin.
By June 17, 1942, no Jews
were left in Kolin.
The Nazis collected all
Jewish religious items from
the Kolin Synagogue to be
included in the "Central
Museum of the Extinct Jew-
ish Race" that would be used
to justify Hitler's Final Solu-
tion. These artifacts joined
hundreds of thousands of
other stolen goods from Jew-
ish communities in
Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia
and other parts of Europe.
Some 140,000 treasures —
including Torah ark cur-
tains, ceremonial objects
used by the Jewish Burial
Society of Prague and
historical books —remain
from the Nazi purge. Many
were used to form the
"Precious Legacy" collec-
tion.
Until they could organize
their "Museum," the Nazis
left the artifacts they looted
on the floors of Prague syn-
agogues, which had been
converted to warehouses.
The Kolin Torah joined
1,563 other Torahs on the
waterlogged synagogue
floors. Some of the scrolls
were splattered with blood;
others contained notes, in-
cluding one that said,
"Please, God, help us in
these troubled times."
In February 1964, the
1,564 Torahs the Nazis in-
tended for the "Central Mu-
seum of the Extinct Jewish
Race" found their way to the
Westminster Synagogue in
London. Of these, five would
find a home in Detroit. They
are the Kolin Torah at Tem-
ple Shir Shalom; the Torah

a Torah writing) was held in
March 1988. Hundreds of
guests attended the event,
which featured a cake in the
shape of a Torah.
"The Torah is for every-
one," Rabbi Bergstein says.
"It's in our shul, but it really
belongs to Michigan Jews.
We're just the caretakers."

F

ive Torahs in area syn-
agogues and temples
were saved from the
Holocaust, including a scroll
—now at Thmple Shir Shalom
— more than 250 years old
stored for 20 years on the
floor of an abandoned Prague
synagogue.
The temple acquired its
Torah last year, and a com-
mittee is working to restore
the scroll with funds from a
project that allows in-
dividuals to purchase a
letter or word in the name of
a loved one.
The Torah came from
Kolin, Czechoslovakia, a
town 30 miles east of

Alex Roberg and the
Torah with the sawed-ott
handles. The German
official asked, "Are these
handles also holy?"

,

ct)

CD

THE DETROITJEW1SH NEWS

29

CLOS E U P

Local Torahs have been saved from the flames
of the Holocaust, pulled from a Chicago
trash can and rescued by a German official.

