New York synagogue restores Torah that survived confiscation by Nazis

[Bob Hubbard]

During World War II, the Nazis confiscated this Torah, also known as number 559, from a synagogue in Kolin, about 35 miles east of Prague. The Nazis were known to confiscate sacred items.
The town’s Jewish community was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic, where most were killed.
Rabbi Yochanan Salazar, a scribe with Sofer on Site, a North Miami Beach, Florida-based organization, restored the Kolin Torah, which he calls a “survivor of the Holocaust.”

The quill must be made from a kosher bird, such as a goose, turkey, or other animal so that the words in the Torah “will be in your mouth,” Salazar said. “Therefore it must be something that has to be allowed in your mouth.”

If a mistake is made in writing a Hebrew letter, the sofer must wait for the ink to dry and scrape it off. If a shadow remains, it is not considered ink and may be written over. Restoring the Kolin Torah took about six months and cost about $14,000.
Most errors can be fixed. But a few, such as if the scribe were to forget to sanctify God’s name aloud while writing it and can no longer remember where the reference was, require that the Torah be buried.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/...hat-survived-confiscation-by-nazis/?hpt=hp_c2

Very interesting. I had no idea it was this complex.

 

[Carol]

Interesting story and very moving video. Thanks for sharing that Bob :asian:

 

[CanuckMA]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/...hat-survived-confiscation-by-nazis/?hpt=hp_c2

Very interesting. I had no idea it was this complex.

It is. There are thousands of such scrolls around the world. The Nazis, in teir percerse logic, kept the scrolls to put in a museum dedicated to the extinct culture.

It takes up to a year to write a new scroll. The one mistale in the article is that if e scroll is made of panels, glued and sewn together. Only the one panel needs to be buried.

Yhe skill rewired to write a scroll is incredible. A casual observer can easily mistake a scroll to be mechanically produced, it's that perfect.