
Beth Shalom proudly displays a torah rescued from the Czech Jewish community.
The origins of Beth Shalom's Torah is unclear - so many Torahs were confiscated and jumbled together by the Nazis that original home of some is a mystery. It is numbered MST #94, and according to Memorial Scroll Trust, it comes from a town somewhere in Bohemia and Moravia.
Pittsburgh's congregations are host to many Czech Shoah Torahs. For more, click this story from 2021 in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.
The plaque on our Torah reads as follows:
"Czech Torah Scroll - Circa 1600"
"Scribed in the ancient tradition, this desecrated Torah came from a synagogue in Czechoslovakia. The Torah was captured by Nazi invaders who murdered Jews and pillaged their synagogues during the Holocaust and held as booty artifacts to be used as symbols of what they hoped to be a lost race."
"This Torah will serve as a symbol of rememberence of the Holocaust to insure that we will never forget the horrors of the past and those who died to preserve our heritage."
For more information about rescued European Holocaust Torahs, go to https://www.memorialscrollstrust.org/ .