Holocaust Torah

We are privileged to have Czech Memorial Torah Scroll #277, one of the 1,564 Czech Memorial Sifrei Torah. This Torah which was scribed in 1832 in Brno, Czechoslovakia, a city 15 miles south of Prague, with a pre-war population of 15,000 Jews is also a memorial to all the pious Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis. This scroll constituted part of the treasures looted by the Nazis from the desolated Jewish communities of Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia during the 1939-1945 war. 

With the help of the Czechoslovak government and Artia (the State Cultural Agency), this Sefer Torah was delivered to Westminster Synagogue in 1964. Some of the collection remain at Westminster Synagogue, a permanent memorial to the martyrs from whose synagogues they come; with many of them distributed throughout the world.

Our Sefer Torah came to Temple Beth Tikvah with the help of Cantor Mehler, arranged for this Holocaust Torah to be brought to Temple Beth Tikvah in memory of his parents Aron & Leah Mehler and his three brothers Yeshaje Hertz Naftah, age 12, Moishe Shaul, age 8 and Mordechai, age 4. They were each murdered in Auschwitz on August 18, 1942.