NEWS FEATURE: Holocaust-era Torah Scroll Preserved in Houston

c. 2000 Religion News Service HOUSTON _ If history had happened according to the Nazis’ plans, a historic Torah scroll now owned by a Houston synagogue would be on display in an atrocious museum. As part of their genocide of European Jewry, the Nazis had considered opening an “Exotic Museum of an Extinct Race” after […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

HOUSTON _ If history had happened according to the Nazis’ plans, a historic Torah scroll now owned by a Houston synagogue would be on display in an atrocious museum. As part of their genocide of European Jewry, the Nazis had considered opening an “Exotic Museum of an Extinct Race” after World War II.

Instead, the Torah scroll is treasured by the Congregation Beth Am, a Conservative Jewish synagogue of 140 families led by Rabbi Jonathan Israel Kohn.


Although the synagogue has had the handwritten scroll containing the five Books of Moses since shortly after the congregation started in 1972, only recently has it been able to trace the scroll’s history. As is true with so many stories from the Holocaust, the story of how the scroll came to Houston is a tale of twists and turns.

During World War II in Czechoslovakia, Jewish houses of worship were looted by Nazis who took what the members held most sacred. The plundered Torah scrolls, silverware, textiles and other treasures were discovered in Prague at the close of the war. Many of the items found a new home in the Jewish Museum in Prague. But more than 1,500 Torah scrolls were not part of the exhibits.

Instead, they were stored for years until they were sold to a London businessman in 1964.

The 1,564 Torah scrolls were transferred to the Westminster synagogue in London and the Westminster Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust was set up. It cataloged and numbered the scrolls. Some scrolls were repaired.

Those in good or repairable condition were distributed on the basis of permanent loan to synagogues around the world. Badly damaged scrolls were given to museums.

Siegi Izakson, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Houston, stepped in. He acquired the scroll in the early 1960s and eventually gave it to Congregation Beth Am after the synagogue was organized, said Sheldon Evans, the congregation’s vice president for ritual.

“Because (Izakson) was active internationally in the Holocaust survivors’ community, he found out about the Torah repository in London,” Evans said.


Izakson went to London, picked up the Torah in London, brought it to Houston and “treasured it” in an ark in his home, Evans said. After Congregation Beth Am was organized, Izakson and his wife, Ruth, donated the scroll to the synagogue.

When it received the scroll, the Houston congregation knew it had been confiscated during the Holocaust, Evans said.

They also knew from an inscription that it originally had been donated in 1822 to an Austerlitz synagogue in honor of a young boy’s bar mitzvah, he said.

But that was all.

Two years later, another of the Westminster scrolls was given to the newly formed Nottingham Progressive Jewish Congregation in Nottingham, England. It, too, came from the Austerlitz synagogue.

In 1990, a conference was organized in London for English congregations holding one or more of the Czech scrolls. Representatives of the Nottingham congregation attended, hoping to interact with other synagogues that had scrolls, and decided later to find out more about the Jewish community at Austerlitz.

The result of their research was a small book, “The Jews of Austerlitz.” The Jewish community of Austerlitz _ located in Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic _ dated to 1294. The book traces the long history of Jews in that small town, including the concentration camp to which they were sent. Very few survived. In 1994, a memorial stone was erected at the Jewish cemetery in Austerlitz, called Slavkov u Brna in Czech, in the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust.


Later the Jewish synagogue was restored through funding from the Czech government and Jewish groups.

About a year ago, the Nottingham synagogue wrote to Congregation Beth Am.

“They were inviting congregations to purchase copies of the book,” Evans said. “Nottingham Congregation was able to identify by the numbers assigned by Westminster Trust to each scroll that one of (the Austerlitz scrolls) came to Beth Am.”

It was only after they received the book that the Houston congregation learned of the many places their scroll had been and of the people who originally cherished it.

Working with the book, Evans and the synagogue’s lay leaders and rabbi decided the scroll, No. 239 of the Czech memorial collection, should be re-examined.

A Torah scroll is made of parchment, wrapped around two wooden poles or rollers, covered with an embroidered cloth. Silver ornaments rest on the scroll and a silver breastplate adorns the covering.

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“It came to us restored, but it was so old and delicate it had to be examined again,” Evans said.


Only a trained “sofer,” Hebrew for scribe, is allowed to hand-copy Torah scrolls, examine them and restore them, Evans said. Rabbi Moshe Druin of Miami Beach, Fla., a sofer, came to Houston this spring to examine the Torah scrolls of several congregations, Evans said. Among them was Congregation Beth Am’s special scroll.

As is the custom, Druin went through the entire Torah, restoring any worn or indistinct letters.

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Because of its age and delicate condition, the scroll will be used only five or six times a year for special occasions, Evans said. But knowing its history means a lot to Congregation Beth Am.

“I think the people at Beth Am whom I spoke to wanted desperately to be a part of this Torah,” he said. “It wasn’t part of them until they knew more about it.”

For the congregation, the Torah represents an important historic and religious link.

“A link for us to the Holocaust in the past and as a link to the next generation,” Evans said. He noted that in Deuteronomy, Moses tells the people of Israel to diligently teach the Torah to their children.

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