{"id":2910,"date":"2023-03-06T17:40:30","date_gmt":"2023-03-06T22:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ramapo.edu\/holocaust\/?page_id=2910"},"modified":"2025-02-12T17:23:23","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T22:23:23","slug":"welcoming-our-czech-torah","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ramapo.edu\/holocaust\/welcoming-our-czech-torah\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Czech Memorial Scroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Kol\u00edn to Mahwah<\/span><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>

Processing to the Center with the Torah under a Jewish wedding canopy.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Center welcomed a Czech Memorial Scroll to Ramapo Campus at a moving ceremony on May 1, 2023. It is on permanent loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust.<\/p>\n

Before WWII, the Torah belonged to the Jewish community of Kol\u00edn, a city forty miles east of Prague. Experts estimate that it was written in the mid-eighteenth century.<\/p>\n

The Center thanks Cipora Schwartz and Dr. Susan Gaulden for their generosity, which made it possible to obtain our scroll.<\/p>\n

Click for our dedication ceremony<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Click to read about our scroll and event in the Jewish Standard<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\"Picture<\/a>

Czech Memorial Scroll from Kol\u00edn, ca. 1750<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Please contact us<\/a> to schedule a visit to see and learn more about our scroll and our related programs. We would be delighted to welcome school groups.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Become Involved<\/div>
\n

We invite you to sponsor our Czech Memorial Scroll for one month in honor or memory of someone or something dear to you. The minimum contribution is $360. Months may have multiple sponsors. The sponsors and their honorees will be listed on our website and displayed prominently in the Center.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sponsor our Scroll<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Scroll Sponsors
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

2023-2024<\/span>
\nSharon and David Rubin<\/p>\n

2024-2025<\/span>
\nArthur Barchenko<\/p>\n

2025-2026<\/span>
\nStan Richmond
\nLinda Reppert
\nIn memory of her brother, Marvin Wendroff, and in honor of Simon Wiesenthal<\/em><\/p>\n

2026-2027<\/span>
\nStan Richmond<\/p>\n

\n

We encourage communities with Czech Memorial Scrolls to contact us<\/a>, so we may create a\u00a0 digital exhibition. Center director, Dr. Jacob Ari Labendz, is a scholar of Czech-Jewish history and will gladly assist you in researching the your scroll\u2019s community of origin.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\"Torah<\/p>\n

The Czech Memorial Scrolls<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Rabbi<\/a>

Rabbi Norman Patz hands a Czech Torah to Dr. Jacob Labendz on behalf of the Memorial Scrolls Trust<\/p><\/div>\n

Our Kol\u00edn scroll comes from a collection of over 1,800 Bohemian and Moravian Torahs which survived the Holocaust in Prague\u2019s Central Jewish Museum. With the permission of the Nazi Protectorate, Jewish scholars and workers preserved the material heritage of their communities, as the Nazis deported the region\u2019s Jews to Terez\u00edn and other sites of atrocity. In 1964, state officials induced the State Jewish Museum\u2014nationalized in 1950\u2014to sell what remained of the collection, 1,564 scrolls. Artia, the state agency that managed art sales abroad, contacted Eric Estorick, a well known dealer. Estorick arranged for Ralph Yablon to purchase the collection, which he, in turn, donated to the Westminster Synagogue in London. The new custodians repaired the scrolls and founded the Memorial Scrolls Trust<\/a> to distribute them on a permanent loan basis to Jewish communities and organizations around the world. There are now over 1,000 Czech scrolls in the US, including one at the White House.<\/p>\n

In September 2023, the Memorial Scrolls Trust will release a new book about the scrolls by Miles Laddie,\u00a01564 Scrolls: A Legacy of Jewish Life in Bohemia and Moravia<\/em>. Congregations with scrolls and other institutions may purchase 10-packs here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Jews of Kol\u00edn<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Interior<\/a>

Synagogue in Kol\u00edn, Newly Restored<\/p><\/div>\n

Jews had already settled in Kol\u00edn by the early 1400s. The community grew in numbers and significance in the fifteenth century, due to the city\u2019s commercial importance and expulsions from nearby towns. The Jews of Kol\u00edn weathered expulsions and returns, along with their coreligionists across Bohemia, over the next three hundred years\u2014but also thrived. The Jewish community reached its largest size in the mid-nineteenth century, shortly after emancipation, with some 1,350 members, who composed 17% of the total population. The community, which had once boasted a yeshiva<\/em>, shrank thereafter, due to the voluntary relocation of many Jews to Prague. It remained, nonetheless, an important locus of Jewish cultural and political life. In the census of 1930, 430 Kol\u00edn residents declared themselves Jewish by religion. Twelve years later, the Nazis deported 2,202 Jews from the Kol\u00edn region to Terez\u00edn. They murdered all but 134. Only sixty-nine Jews returned to the Kol\u00edn after the Holocaust, including Rabbi Richard Feder (1875-1970), who had led the community there for two decades preceding the war. In short time, the community ceased to function. Building on precedent from the 1980s, the City of Kol\u00edn and its citizens have invested heavily in memorializing their city\u2019s Jewish past.<\/p>\n

From our Elected Officials (Click to View)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Letter<\/a>

Senator Cory Booker \/ Click for PDF<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Letter<\/a>

Senator Robert Menendez \/ Click for PDF<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Commemorative<\/a>

Commemorative plaque from Mahwah Township \/ Click for PDF<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Click for Video Remarks from Michael Ka\u0161par, the Mayor of Kol\u00edn<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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