Czech Republic: Celebration Planned at Restored Hermanuv Mestec Synagogue

Czech Republic: Celebration Planned at Restored Synagogue

Simchat Torah in Hermanuv Mestec, CZ

Ruth Ellen Gruber reports about Hermanuv Mestec (Czech Republci), where Simhat Torah will be celebrated on October 22nd in the restored neo-Romanesque synagogue (designed by architect Frantisek Schmoranz and built in 1870).

The event will be a joint celebration by Prague's liberal Bejt Simcha congregation and the Progressive Temple Sinai congregation from Wellington, New Zealand. Temple Sinai has a Torah scroll that comes from Hermanuv Mestec, which it received through the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust, of which I have written before.

Go to Ruth's blog for more information and photos of the synagogue.

Click here for more photos.

UK: New Czech Scrolls Museum To Open in London, September 17th, 2008

UK: New Czech Scrolls Museum To Open in London, September 17th, 2008

The Memorial Scrolls Trust has entirely redesigned and reinstalled is facilities at Kent House in London to create a new Czech Scroll Museum, to open to the public with a reception on the evening of September 17th. The previous exhibition has been in place since 1988. I have written about the story of the scrolls before but it is a story that merits retelling.

In 1964, 1,564 Torah Scrolls arrived at Kent House in London, the home of London's Westminster Synagogue. After intense negotiations, they were brought from a dilapidated synagogue in Prague where they had moldered since they were collected from the Jewish congregations of Moravia and Bohemia at the time of their destruction. In London, during the next four decades, in a suite of rooms above the synagogue at Kent House, many of the scrolls were restored for synagogue service while others made suitable for use a memorials. Almost all the scrolls have sent out to communities across the world, where their use and exhibition is a constant reminder of the Holocaust.

The existence of the Torah scrolls is a constant reminder of the murder of Czech Jews and the destruction of Czech Jewish communities and synagogues in the Holocaust. The survival of the Torah scrolls and their rescue and repair and subsequent distribution to Jewish communities throughout the world, is in its simplest terms, testimony to the resilience of Judaism and the Jewish people. The new museum, which is the product of the energy and commitment of Evelyn Friedlander, Chair and Curator of the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust, and German designer Fritz Armbruster, tells these stories, and more. The Jewish Museum in Prague has provided support, information and contributed exhibition objects on loan.

In addition to commemorating those tens of thousands of Czech Jews killed in the Holocaust, Evelyn Friedlander writers in the Trust’s newsletter that “The Museum is also a memorial to two groups of people; the Jews of the Prague Jewish community who worked at the Central Jewish Museum and who proposed the plan that enabled so many ritual objects to be saved. The second group to be honored in our new exhibition is those founder members of Westminster Synagogue, who, under the leadership of Rabbi Harold Reinhart, enabled these Scrolls to be brought to London. Here, they were returned to life and distributed to communities all over the world.”
The new museum shows the various stages of the story of the rescue of the Scrolls, from the tragedy of the Czech Jewish community under the Nazis, to the arrival of the Scrolls in London, the subsequent work done by professional scribes, the sending out of the scrolls to their new Jewish (and non-Jewish homes) and the present-day research undertaken by those recipients to explore the background of their Scroll.

Among the exhibits are the remaining scrolls lying on the original wooden racks where they were placed when they arrived, and an display of some of the Torah binders which were tied around the scrolls. The exhibition also show’s the scribe’s table where he worked meticulously upon the scrolls, together with his ink, pens and other equipment.

The Museum will open on 17th September and thereafter will be open to the public on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 4 pm.? Groups are asked to contact the Trust to arrange party visits.

Address: Westminster Synagogue, Rutland Gardens, Knightsbridge, London SW7 1BX

Tel: 020 7584 3741 , e-mail: czech.scrolls@virgin.net

USA & UK Syngogues Research Kladno (Czech Rep) Torah Scrolls

US & UK Synagogues Research Kladno (Czech Rep.) Torah Scrolls

More than forty years after the establishment of the Czech Scrolls Memorial Trust in London, congregations holding these Holocaust survivors continue to learn about the scrolls and the history and fate of the communities that owned and used them. These investigations can lead to close ties between Jews and Czech (non-Jewish) communities.

Since they were “rescued” in the early 1960s, the Trust has successfully restored and distributed over 1500 Torah scrolls collected in Prague during the Nazi occupation. In recent months, two congregations in the US and the UK have collaborated with a Christian community in Kladno, Czech Republic, to learn more about the history of two scrolls which came from that town, and to commemorate the hundreds of Jews of Kladno who were murdered.

Congregation Beth El in Fairfield, Connecticut has one of the memorial scrolls. The Northwood and Pinner Liberal Synagogue (NPLS) in Northwood, Middlesex, UK has a portion of another scroll, as well as scrolls from Kolin and Trebon. Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, who is retiring this year as Rabbi of NPLS, initiated in 1974 the NPLS connection with (then) Czechoslovak Jewry and has led many visits by groups to the Czech and Slovak Republics since the Velvet Revolution. (See: http://www.bjbe.org/spirit/kolin.htm). He and his congregation have been active in efforts to restore Jewish sites in Kolin and elsewhere. However, as described in a recent article by NPLS member Michel Heppner, the Kladno Scroll at NPLS never quite got its due, and connections with that town were not made by congregation.

This year, however, Dr. Ellin Yassky (known perhaps to my readers for the beautiful Jewish art books she has edited for publisher Hugh Lauter Levin), a member of Congregation Beth El in Fairfild, Connecticut (USA), took the leadership role in researching her congregation’s Kladno Scroll. Fairfield and Middlesex congregations are working together, and they have linked with the Hussite congregation in Kladno, which owns and uses the former synagogue as its church.

[In all, forty Czech synagogues are now churches, mostly Hussite. For a list see: Survey of Historic Jewish Monuments in the Czech Republic by Samuel Gruber and Phyllis Myers (eds.), 39-40, at: http://www.heritageabroad.gov/reports/index.html (under "reports")]

Together the three congregations have pieced together something of the history of the scrolls – and more importantly have begun joint commemorative and education programs about the Kladno Jewish community, its history and its fate. A commemorative service was held at the Hussite Church in Kladno last Christmas, when members of the Fairfield Congregation visited on their way to Israel. Last month, on June 6^th, the Fairfield scroll was re-dedicated in a ceremony attended by Czech diplomats, American elected officials, the mayor and archivist of Kladno, and the secretary of the Kladno Hussite Church. The guest speaker was Ela Weissberger, a Terezin survivor and a Holocaust education advocate. The Fairfield County Children's Chorale sang songs by Czech composer and Holocaust survivor Franticek Domazlicky.

For further information, please contact Congregation Beth El, 1200 Fairfield Woods Road, Fairfield, CT. 203-374-5544/ CongBethEl@aol.com or Ellin Yassky, Director of the Kladno Torah Research and Restoration Project at
medici18@yahoo.com.

Also see Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust at: http://www.czechmemorialscrollstrust.org/

On the NPLS Scroll see: http://www.npls.eclipse.co.uk/Memorial%20Shabbat%20Kladno.htm

Restoration of Baroque Synagogue in Jičín (Czech Republic) complete

Restoration of Baroque Synagogue in Jičín (Czech Republic) complete.

By Samuel D. Gruber (ISJM)
(June 20. 2008)

Following nearly eight years (2001-2008) the restoration of the magnificent Baroque synagogue in Jičín, North Bohemia (Czech Republic) is complete. The Prague Jewish Community will officially open the building to the public on Thursday, June 19, 2008. The restoration project is part of a continuing effort by the Czech Jewish Community to reclaim, protect and preserver its historic, cultural and artistic heritage.

A Jewish settlement is known to have existed in Jičín in the second half of the 14th century, but Jews were expelled from the town in 1542-45 and again in 1557-63. The now-restored synagogue was erected in 1773, more than a century after Jews are known to have been readmitted to the town. According to Dr. Arno Pařík of the Prague Jewish Museum, "this is an exceptionally pure example of a small, late Baroque synagogue." It is a rectangular building, approximately 12.5 meters long and 8.2 meters wide, with a fairly high saddle roof over a barrel-vault, supported on traverse arches and 90 cm. thick walls. The sanctuary is well-lit by three tall arched windows on the south and north walls. Smaller windows are set in the west (façade) and east walls, the latter dominated by the well-preserved masonry Ark, flanked by twisted columns. The vivid wall paintings – mostly in reds and blues – have been restored to their 1840 appearance.

These photos taken in May 2008 near the end of restoration work are provided by Dr. Arno Pařík and the Jewish Museum of Prague. Additional photos of the restored building will be posted soon at www.isjm.org

The building is now one of best preserved late Baroque synagogues remaining in Central Europe.

The restoration of the synagogue was supervised by engineer Mojmír Malý at Matana a.s., Administration of Buildings and Cemeteries. Heritage supervision is provided by the Zecher Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Monuments through Dr. Arno Pařík, and the National Heritage Institute – specialist department in Pardubice. Financing has been provided by the Jewish Community of Prague, the Czech Ministry of Culture, the District Authority of Hradec Králové, and the Municipal Government of Jičín. Financial support for the synagogue renovation has also been provided by the Jewish Heritage Program and World Monuments Fund.

A Torah scroll from Jicin is now in the possession of Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, Massachusetts (USA).

For more on the history and architecture of the building see Arno Pařík, "History and Renovation of Jičín Synagogue," Judaica Bohemiae (40/2004), 104-122.