Sulzbach Torah scroll

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The Sulzbach Torah scroll is a Torah scroll from Sulzbach-Rosenberg . It dates from 1792 or 1793 and survived both the Sulzbach city fire of 1822 and the November pogroms in 1938 . After the fall of National Socialism , it was kept unrecognized in the Torah shrine of the Amberg synagogue for over seven decades . After it was rediscovered, it was restored and on January 27, 2021, following the memorial service for the day of commemoration of the victims of National Socialism by the German Bundestag in the prayer room in the Reichstag buildingcompleted. Sponsors were the administrators of the five permanent constitutional organs of the federal government .

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The Torah scroll was written on parchment for the Sulzbach synagogue . For this, thirty animal skins were joined together, so that a length of 24 meters and a height of 65 centimeters came about. Sulzbach had a flourishing Jewish community life from the middle of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century. Until 1851, one of the world's most important Hebrew book printing companies existed in the city for almost two centuries . In 1737 the Jewish community built a new synagogue to replace the dilapidated first synagogue from 1687. It burned down on the night of June 9-10, 1822. Rabbi Isak Aronsohn Mannheimer at the time was able to save six Torah scrolls from the synagogue, probably including the Sulzbach Torah scroll. Thanks to the generous financial support from its own parishioners and collections in other parishes, the new synagogue, built in the classical style, was inaugurated on August 31, 1824. It was considered one of the most beautiful synagogues in Bavaria at the time and was the center of Jewish life in Sulzbach. However, the number of believers continued to decline and by September 1930 no minyan was formed . The synagogue was sold to the city of Sulzbach for a symbolic price and converted into a local museum . The building survived the November pogroms of 1938 unscathed. The Torah scrolls and other liturgical objects were brought to the Amberg synagogue . It was assumed that on the night of the pogrom it was burned with the interior furnishings of the synagogue by SA men . In fact, the Amberg rabbi Leopold Godlewsky was able to bring the Torah to safety in the local history museum of the city of Amberg before the pogrom night, where it outlived the Nazi regime. For the next seven decades she remained undetected in the Torah shrine of the Amberg synagogue.

Rediscovery

In 2015 Elias Dray, the rabbi of the Amberg Israelite Community , discovered the Sulzbach Torah scroll in the Torah shrine of the Amberg synagogue , which he recognized as a historically valuable manuscript only because of the year. The Torah scroll bears the inscription “Sulzbach” and on its holder the year “5553” according to the Jewish calendar , which corresponds to the end of the year 1792 and the beginning of the year 1793 in the Gregorian calendar . Such an indication of the year is extremely rare. Since the Torah was worn out through long use and decades of storage and the writing had faded heavily, it was no longer considered kosher and could no longer be used ritually. Experts in Israel estimated the cost of a professional restoration of the Torah at 40,000 to 50,000 euros. Therefore, the Amberg community initially refrained from the restoration. Since the Torah can no longer be used for ritual purposes, it would normally have been kept in a genisa or buried in a clay jar in a Jewish cemetery . However, Elias Dray hoped that there would still be a way to finance the restoration and thus use it in church services. On April 18, 2016, the Torah was loaned to the Sulzbach synagogue for a one-year exhibition to mark the 350th anniversary of the congregation.

Later the restoration was actually made possible by the assumption of costs by the federal government and was carried out in the Israeli city of Bnei Berak by a group around the Sofer Izak rose garden. The parchment was stabilized and each letter was traced by hand with ink. After completing the year-long work, the Torah was almost back in a state that allowed it to be used in worship. Only eight letters were missing at the end of the script.

Completion in the German Bundestag

The completion of the restoration is an act that is usually performed during a ceremony in a synagogue . In the case of the Sulzbach Torah scroll, it took place instead on January 27, 2021, the day of commemoration of the victims of National Socialism , following the corresponding memorial hour of the German Bundestag in the prayer room in the Reichstag building . There a sofer wrote the last eight letters with a goose quill and kosher ink at the end of the Torah scroll. The Torah scroll is sponsored by the highest representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany: Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier , Federal Parliament President Wolfgang Schäuble , Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel , Federal Council President Reiner Haseloff and the President of the Federal Constitutional Court , Stephan Harbarth .

"As representatives of all constitutional organs, with this unusual and in this form unique symbolic act we express the state's commitment to enable and protect Jewish life in Germany."

- Wolfgang Schäuble

Representing Judaism in Germany at the ceremony were the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster , the Chairwoman of the Jewish Community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch, and Rabbi Elias Dray from Amberg . Knobloch had previously appeared as a speaker during the memorial act. For Josef Schuster, the “Sulzbach Torah scroll, which is over 200 years old, is a factual sign that Jewish life in Germany goes back a long way”.

Under normal circumstances it would have been customary for the sofer to guide the godfather by applying the missing letters. Since this was not possible due to the distance rules during the COVID-19 pandemic , he wrote the letters himself.

Following the ceremony in the German Bundestag, the Sulzbach Torah scroll is initially stored. It is to be ceremoniously received in June 2021 in the Amberg town hall and brought to the synagogue in a pageant. There it is intended to be used in church services.

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The Synagogue in Sulzbach-Rosenberg (Amberg-Sulzbach district. In: Alemannia Judaica . June 30, 2020, accessed on January 27, 2021 .
  2. ↑ a b c Gabriele Ingenthron: The oldest Torah scroll in southern Germany will be completed in the Bundestag on Holocaust Remembrance Day. In: sonntagsblatt.de . January 24, 2021, accessed January 27, 2021 .
  3. ↑ a b Judith Werner: A role returns. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . April 18, 2016, accessed January 27, 2021 .
  4. ↑ a b c Miryam Gümbel: A Torah in the Bundestag. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . January 22, 2021, accessed January 27, 2021 .
  5. ^ Christiane Schlötzer: Imposing testimony to Jewish life. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . April 17, 2016, accessed January 28, 2021 .
  6. ↑ a b c d Gabriele Ingenthron: The last eight letters. In: Jüdische Allgemeine . January 27, 2021, accessed January 27, 2021 .