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Torah Scrolls

THE HISTORY OF OUR SCROLLS

Scroll #1

Blue Mantle (right side)

Our very first scroll was a Holocaust Torah acquired in 1983 from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London, England. The Memorial Scrolls Trust has distributed over 1500 Holocaust Torot, rescued from the ravages of World War II and then housed in Westminster Synagogue, also in England. These scrolls are all from Jewish communities in Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia that were wiped out by the Nazis.

 

Our scroll, which is between 250-300 years old, was from a village in Bohemia (now the western half of Czechia) called Kostelec nad Labem. One of our long-time members and past presidents, Marilyn Nusbaum (ז״ל), made its Holocaust-themed blue velvet mantle. For many years, this scroll was not used at CKS because it was in need of repair and was not kosher.

 

In 2025, we had it restored for use by a sofer (torah scribe) and began chanting from it regularly. At the same time, a CKS b-mitzvah student and her mother researched the Jewish history of Kostelec nad Labem and the people who lived there, all of whom perished in the Holocaust.

 

The Memorial Scrolls Trust reminds us that our Holocaust Torah and others like it serve as “permanent memorials to the martyrs from whose synagogues they came... they spread light as harbingers of future brotherhood on earth...and all of them bear witness to the glory of the holy Name.”

 

 

Left: Congregant Mike Arons carries our first Holocaust scroll at the reunion of Czech scrolls in NYC, Feb 2019.

Right: Certificate of Authenticity hanging in our sanctuary
Click either image to enlarge

 

Links to the MST website have temporarily been disabled.

Scroll #2

Maroon Mantle (Center)

Dr. Art Steinberg, a CKS past president, acquired our second Torah in 1983 from a synagogue that closed outside of Philadelphia. 

 


We at CKS feel blessed to be the keepers of these sacred scrolls. 

 

Scroll #3

Red Mantle (Left side)

Our third Torah was acquired in 1991 from Shaare Tikvah (Gates of Hope), a Vineland, NJ synagogue that closed in 1986. Shaare Tikvah was established by German and Austrian Holocaust survivors that settled as poultry farmers in the South Vineland area as early as 1946.

 

This Torah scroll came to the United States from Germany and was eventually purchased by the mostly-Orthodox farming congregation of Shaare Tikvah.

 

It came to CKS with a beautiful wimple, or Torah binder, in the distinctly German hand-painted style. The wimple marks the birth of a baby boy in Germany in 1933. It is likely that this wimple was donated by his family once in America, after having fled the Nazis, since (upon research) the family appears to have had connections with Vineland, NJ.  

 

Synagogue attendance in Vineland began to decline in the late 1970s, and most of the religious articles were donated to the Alliance Synagogue in Elmer, NJ (formerly called Tifereth Israel).

 

When there were no men remaining for a minyan at Shaare Tikvah, the surviving women decided that Barbara Lehman, a founding family daughter and a Kohen, should receive the Torah and its silver accessories. Barbara brought that Torah to CKS, where we are honored to continue using it. 

 

 

Shaare Tikvah ("Iowa Street Shul")
830 Iowa Street, Vineland, NJ
(1956 - 1990s)

 

Sat, June 21 2025 25 Sivan 5785