Obituaries

'Hidden Torah' Makes Aliyah

Daniel Kuhn
Jerusalem Post

A

Torah that survived the
Holocaust and spent the better
part of a century hidden in a
monastery in Lithuania has completed a
long journey to Israel.
Last week the Torah, saved by a girl
during the Holocaust, was dedicated at its
new home in Kehillat Mayanot, a Masorti
community in Jerusalem's Talpiot neigh-
borhood.
More than 60 years ago, the girl from
the town of Kelm, Lithuania, took refuge
in a local convent, serving as a nun in an
act of self-preservation. She brought the
Torah from her local synagogue with her.
While the girl was eventually discovered
by the Nazis and murdered, the Torah
remained unscathed.
Two American teenage girls belonging
to the Orthodox Bais Yaakov movement
discovered the Torah on a Jewish heritage

tour of Europe in the summer of 2003.
One of them took pictures with her
digital camera and sent them to Rabbi
Menachem Youlus, a rabbi in Wheaton,
Md., who operates a foundation called
Save A Torah.
Youlus' foundation takes old Torah
scrolls, many from communities destroyed
during the Holocaust, and restores them
to be used by Jewish communities once
again.
"No matter what has happened in 5,000
plus years of Judaism, the one thing we
have in any era is our Torah — that is our
rock:' said Youlus in an e-mail message.
Youlus traveled to Lithuania to the
monastery to purchase the Torah from
the priests in the same summer of its
discovery. He then restored it with the
help of Elliot and Evonne Schnitzer, two
congregants of Congregation Adas Israel, a
Washington, D.C., Conservative synagogue.
"For my family these events are an affir-
mation of 'Am Yisrael chai; the people of

Israel lives;' Eliot said at the Torah dedica-
tion at the U.S. synagogue in May.
Together with Rabbi Jeffrey Wohlberg
of Adas Israel, the Schnitzers decided to
lend the Torah to the Masorti movement
in Israel. The first community chosen was
Kehillat Mayanot.
Synagogue chairwoman Miriam
Avraham described Mayanot as a small
group that has developed to become more
family oriented. The community consists
mostly of a mix of Israelis and English-
speakers, with several French Jews.
Though they have met in the Masorti
high school in Talpiot for 10 years, they are
in the process of receiving land from the
city of Jerusalem to construct a building
near Ramat Rachel.
Wohlberg traveled to Israel along with
many of his congregants, some who came
to Israel for the first time, to personally
deliver the Torah at a special ceremony
on the Haas Promenade in Talpiot, just
minutes from Kehillat Mayanot's current

home.
"When we take the Torah out of the ark,
we say Ki mitzion tetze Torah, meaning
because out of Zion comes the Torah. Now,
we get to give a Torah to Zion," Wohlberg
said.
"It's wonderful to strengthen the
Masorti community in Eretz Israel, and
strengthen our connection to Israel and to
Masorti from the U.S:"
Mayanot had been looking for a Torah
to use for holidays and other celebrations.
"The Masorti shuls can't get a Torah from
the government like the Orthodox can;'
said Avraham.
"What is the most touching is that it
came from the Holocaust, from Europe,
with generous help from the American
Jewish community, and eventually to
Israel."
She called it a classic Jewish story, "from
the ashes to Israel and renewed Jewish life.
It's a symbol of continuity of the Jewish
people and Israel." ❑

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