The Czech Memorial Torah Scroll

Temple Beth Shalom is honored to have Czech Memorial Torah Scroll #723, from the area of Pisek and Strakonice. It was was scribed in the middle of the 18th century. Jewish inhabitants formed a small percentage of the total of Písek, where a grand synagogue was built between the Smetanova and Soukenická Streets. It was closed during the Nazi occupation and not reopened after the war. Yad Vashem records state that around 200 people with a connection to Pisek perished in the Holocaust.It is impossible to be certain exactly when Jews settled in the town and surroundings of Strakonaice. At the end of the 19th century, the area did not accept Jews and it is also known that even after that time Jewish merchants were unable to succeed there. It is known that the Jews had their cemeteries and prayer houses in the Strakonice area at a much earlier date.

In 1942, when all communities in Bohemia and Moravia were instructed “historically valuable” items to the Jewish Museum in Prague, “some members of Prague’s Jewish community persuaded the Nazis to allow them bring other religious treasures from the deserted communities and destroyed synagogues to the comparative safety of Prague. More than 212,000 artefacts were brought to the Museum. Among them were about 1,800 Torah scrolls. After the war some fifty Jewish congregations re-established themselves in the Czech Republic and were provided with religious artefacts, not necessarily from their own communities. When the Communists took over the government of the country in 1948, Jewish communal life was again stifled, and most synagogues were closed. Their possessions went to the newly refounded Jewish Museum of Prague. The scrolls were transferred and warehoused in the ruined synagogue at Michle outside Prague where they remained until they came to London in 1964.” (Source)

In 1964, Ralph Yablon, a British solicitor and philanthropist, funded the purchase of 1564 Torah Scrolls from Czechoslovakia and donated them to Westminster Synagogue in London.  The scrolls were shipped across Europe to London where they were catalogued, repaired and restored, if possible. Each Torah was given a numbered brass plaque that identified its origin. Scrolls that could not be restored were sent to religious and educational institutions as memorials. Scrolls repaired and able to be used in religious services were sent to fulfill requests of synagogues all over the world in return for a contribution toward restoration expenses. More information about the scrolls is available at The Memorial Scrolls Trust website.