Vilnius, June 27, BNS–A 350-year-old Torah scroll used in Jewish religious services in the Vilnius ghetto has returned to Vilnius. British photojournalist Judah Passow decided to turn the scroll over to the Lithuanian Jewish Community for use in the Choral Synagogue in Vilnius.
“What’s important is not the [scroll itself], but that he decided to give the Torah to our synagogue. The Torah belonged to his family, it was safeguarded during the war and the entire time. Boys became men during bar mitzvah in front of this Torah and began to read from this Torah, so it is a great honor for us,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky told BNS. According to Jewish religious tradition, Torah scrolls must be written by hand. Kukliansky said this Torah will replace the one currently being used, which is worn out.
Passow, whose roots are in Ukraine and Poland, told how Lithuanian Jewish community representatives gave the scroll to his father, a professor at an American university in Philadelphia, almost six decades ago when he visited Vilnius in 1960.
Passow said his father received support from the Rockefeller Foundation for commemorating Jewish life behind the iron curtain. When he visited Vilnius he met some of the leaders of the community who had survived the Holocaust. They passed him the scroll, which he said was one of two Torah scrolls which survived the dissolution of the Vilnius ghetto by the Nazis. They asked him to take the scroll to the West and protect it, not knowing what the future would bring for Jewish cultural life under the Soviet regime, Passow said.
He said the Torah became part of his family, used by him, his brother and his son for bar mitzvah ceremonies.
Passow said he told his brother and son he was going to Vilnius to show some of his work, and they suggested it might be the right time to return the Torah scroll.
A ceremony was held at the Choral Synagogue Monday to bring in the Torah, with a brief presentation of what the Torah means and its history. Prize-winning photojournalist Judah Passow’s family conserved the Torah scroll for 56 years.
