Tag Archive for Torah

Druze firefighter jumps to save Torah scroll from burning synagogue

Israeli Druze firefighter puts himself in danger by jumping into flames of burning synagogue in northern Israel to save a Torah scroll from burning.

By Chana Roberts

 

Druze firefighter Wiam Nevoani saved a Torah scroll from a burning synagogue on Monday, endangering his life.

Nevoani, a resident of the Druze village of Julis in northern Israel, told Channel 20 about the experience.

Druze firefighter Wiam Nevoani saving a Torah scroll from a burning synagogue. – Photo: Facebook page of כבאות והצלה לישראל Israel Fire & Rescue Authority

“On Monday we were called to fight a fire in a Nahariya synagogue,” Nevoani said. Continue Reading »

Israel’s National Library Receives Rare Ethiopian Torah

 

Used by the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Ethiopia’s Tigray province around 400 years ago, the Orit, translated from Hebrew to Ge’ez, contains the 5 books of Moses, the books of Joshua, Judges & Ruth.

By Yori Yalon

 

A rare copy of the “Orit,” the Ethiopian Jewish Torah, was delivered last week to the National Library of Israel in a festive ceremony full of singing and dancing.

A rare copy of the “Orit,” the Ethiopian Jewish Torah – Photo Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

The scroll, translated from Hebrew to Ge’ez, was written around 400 years ago and used by the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Ethiopia’s Tigray province, Isaac Yaso. Continue Reading »

Report: Seeking retribution Yemen arrests 2 for aiding Torah smuggled to Israel

 

Yemeni Orthodox man and airport worker were arrested of aiding in the operation that brought 19 Yemeni Jews, accompanied with their community’s ancient Torah, to Israel.

By Jessica Satin

 

A Jewish man and an airport worker in Yemen have been arrested under the accusation of aiding in the smuggling of an antique torah from the war-torn country to Israel, the Jewish Chronicle reports.

Yemeni Jew, Sliman Ychya Yakov Dahari (L), arrives alongside other Yemeni Jews to an immigration centre in the Israeli city of Beersheba on March 21, 2016 following a secret rescue operation. – PHOTO: Menahem Kahana (AFP)

Earlier this week 19 Yemini Jews were airlifted to Israel in what officials called a “complex, covert operation” that was carried out with the assistance of the Jewish Agency and the US State Department. Continue Reading »

Jewish community from Italian town of Biella uses world’s oldest Torah scroll

 

The Biella Torah, written 8 centuries ago and is still in use by a Jewish congregation in northern Italy, has been identified as the oldest Torah scroll in use.

By Shoshana Miskin

 

A synagogue in the Italian town of Biella stores what has been identified as the world’s oldest Torah scroll still currently in use.

Carbon-14 dating conducted by the Geo-chronology laboratory of the University of Illinois dated the scroll to around the year 1250 CE.

“This is exciting news that is of extraordinary importance for Italian Judaism,” said Dario Disegni, President of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Italy. Continue Reading »

Waiting 45 years for the technology Israel deciphers 1500 yr-old biblical scroll

view videoDiscovered in Ein Gedi back in 1970, an ancient Hebrew bible scroll dating to 500 CE, has finally been deciphered thanks to the collaboration of cutting-edge Israeli and American technologies.

By Eliran Aharon

 

Cutting-edge technology has for the first time allowed scholars to read the most ancient Hebrew scroll found since the Dead Sea Scrolls, Israeli and US experts said on Monday, AFP reported.

An Israel Antiquities Authority worker displays a scroll (L), found in 1970, along with other findings, that are yet to be analysed, at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem July 20, 2015. – Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The charred piece of parchment from the sixth century CE was found in the ashes of an ancient synagogue at Ein Gedi, on the shores of the Dead Sea, in 1970 but until now has been impossible to read. Continue Reading »

Jewish group petitions Poland for safe return of Torah scrolls hidden in monastery

The Depths Holocaust commemoration organization seeks to retrieve 35 Torah scrolls stolen by Polish priest 70 years ago in his bid to decipher “hidden secrets.”

By Yori Yalon

 

Thirty-five Torah scrolls were recently discovered in Polish monastery, where they have been hidden since the Holocaust.

Jonny Daniels, founder and chairman of The Depths, with the Torah scrolls

It is believed the scrolls, which represent a significant historical find, were stolen over 70 years ago by a local priest, a known anti-Semite who sought to uncover secrets believed to have been hidden by Jews in the sacred books.

For decades, the scrolls were kept in the monastery’s rundown basement. Continue Reading »

Stolen Torah Returned to Jewish Community by Iranian Police

Jewish Iranian MP thanks police for the return of an ‘invaluable’ Torah scroll that was among several ancient manuscripts that ‘disappeared’ from a Shiraz synagogue.

By Hillel Fendel

 

Iran’s FARS news agency reports that an ancient hand-written Torah that had been stolen from a synagogue in southern Iran was found and returned by Iran’s paramilitary Basij police force to the Jewish community.

An Iranian Jew prays at a synagogue in Tehran, Iran (file) – Reuters

The report has not as yet been confirmed by other sources.

A number of ancient Torah manuscripts were reported lost about two weeks ago from a synagogue in Shiraz, the capital city of Iran’s Southern Fars province.

Continue Reading »

Disregarding regulations & protocol, Women of the Wall sneak miniature Torah into the Kotel

The religious feminist organization says this is 1st time in 25 years women have read from the Torah at the holy Jewish site.

Western Wall Rabbi condemns the group’s ‘deception.’

 

Defying regulations by Western Wall rabbinic authorities, members of Women of the Wall smuggled a tiny Torah scroll into the women’s section of the Kotel Friday morning, in what the feminist prayer group said was the first reading from the Torah by women at the holy site in 25 years.

Bat mitzvah girl Sasha Lutt reads from the Torah scroll smuggled into the Kotel.

Bat mitzvah girl Sasha Lutt reads from the tiny Torah scroll smuggled into the Western Wall, Fri.

Continue Reading »

SEEKING: Ride to the Moon for One Torah

 

The Israel based ‘Torah on the Moon’ project has commissioned the European Space Agency to carry a special capsule designed to protect the Torah for at least 10,000 years.

 

 

The European Space Agency has been commissioned to participate in a project to carry a Torah scroll to the moon, according to New Scientist magazine.

Scribe completes Torah scroll

An ultra-Orthodox scribe completing a Torah scroll. Combining all five books together revolutionized Hebrew printing. – Photo: AP

The commission, which was confirmed by the agency’s engineering arm in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, came from a Tel Aviv-based group called, appropriately, the Torah on the Moon project.

Continue Reading »

103 stolen Torah scrolls found in Russia by Hungarian Rabbi

 

Rabbi Slomo Koves reported that he has uncovered, in a library in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, 103 stolen Torah scrolls from Hungarian Jews during World War II.

Rabbi Koves told a press conference in a Budapest synagogue that he has initiated talks with Russia about the return of the scrolls.

By Reuters & Israel Hayom Staff

 

Continue Reading »

Women of the Wall Allowed, but Their Torah Scroll Banned from Kotel

Controversial women’s group, Women of the Wall were allowed into the Kotel to pray, but without their Torah.

By Maayana Miskin

 

The controversial women’s prayer group Women of the Wall held its monthly Rosh Hodesh prayers at the Kotel (Western Wall) on Thursday in honor of the first day of the new Hebrew month.

Activists with Torah scroll – Photo: Miriam Alster

The group brought roughly 200 worshipers – an unusually large number given the group’s usual attendance of several dozen at best. While the group was allowed in to pray, the Torah scroll they had planned to use in their service was not allowed in. Continue Reading »

Damaged Torah scrolls from Iraqi trove buried in New York

 

Damaged Torah scrolls found amid discarded trove of more than 2,700 books & documents in a flooded Iraqi intelligence building basement were buried in a religious ceremony in a suburban New York cemetery.

By Associated Press

Torah scroll fragments found amid a trove of more than 2,700 books and documents in the flooded Iraqi intelligence building basement have been buried in a religious ceremony at a suburban New York cemetery.

Burial is method used for disposal of sacred objects deemed unfit for use under Jewish law - Photo: AP

Burial is method used for disposal of sacred objects deemed unfit for use under Jewish law – Photo: AP

“This project is somewhat reflective of the new Iraq,” said Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the US. Continue Reading »

French town unveils Torah scroll from 1592 & other Jewish treasures

The French town Dambach-la-Ville unveiled dozens of Judaica items hidden before the Holocaust & discovered during the renovation of a former synagogue.

By JTA

 

A town near Strasbourg unveiled dozens of Judaica items hidden before the Holocaust and discovered during the renovation of a former synagogue.

Jean-Camille Bloch showing the ceiling of the old synagogue in Dambach-la-Ville, that became theater  The discovery   was up there. - Photo Jean-Marc Loos

Jean-Camille Bloch showing the ceiling of the old synagogue in Dambach-la-Ville, that became theater, “The discovery was up there.” – Photo: Jean-Marc Loos/L’Alsace

The recently discovered items were presented to the public on Sunday. They had been hidden at what is now the new cultural center of Dambach-la-Ville, a town of 2,000 in eastern France, the L’Alsace daily reported Saturday.

Continue Reading »

Hidden WWII Torah scroll in Polish monastery is returned

The mayor of Dabrowa Tarnowska gave the scroll to conservationists, and today it can be seen in the prayer hall of the former synagogue in southern Poland.

 

WARSAW, Poland — A Torah scroll that since 1942 has been hidden in a Tuchow monastery was returned to the synagogue in Dabrowa Tarnowska in southern Poland.

A Torah scroll, a sheepskin document dating from 1155-1225 - Photo: Alma Mater Studiorum Universita' di Bologna

This Torah scroll is a sheepskin document dating from 1155-1225 – Photo: Alma Mater Studiorum Universita’ di Bologna

The Torah was returned earlier this month but reported for the first time on Saturday.

It had been brought to the monastery in Tuchow, approximately 60 miles from Krakow, by an anonymous person who asked the Redemptorist priests to hold the scrolls until the synagogue in Dabrowa again became a place of prayer, according to Father Kazimierz Piotrowski of the Redemptorist monastery in Warsaw.

Continue Reading »

Women of the Wall asks for use of Kotel’s Torah scroll or to bring in its own

Anat Hoffman, chair of Women of the Wall said it was “absurd” that Rabinowitz has refused Women of the Wall’s offer to donate a Torah scroll to the Kotel (Western Wall) for use by female worshipers there.

By JTA

 

Women of the Wall asked the rabbi of the Western Wall to allow the group to use one of the site’s Torah scrolls.

File:Jerusalem Western Wall BW 2.JPG

Western Wall Torah Ark, inside men’s section of Wilson’s Arch – Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

In a letter sent Sunday, Women of the Wall made the request to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz  for their Rosh Chodesh prayer service, marking the start of the new Jewish month.

Continue Reading »