A centuries-old Torah that survived the Holocaust, an intense restoration and a new age of antisemitism is finally retiring to a cushy home on the Upper West Side.
Hundreds welcomed the more than 300-year-old scroll to the B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on West 88th Street Monday — the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the start of the Holocaust.
The piece of history was consecrated in its new home as a reminder of the past as Jewish New Yorkers continue to battle hate crimes.
“These scrolls continue their life. They’re not monuments to death. They’re living, breathing symbols of life,” Jefferey Ohrenstein, chairman of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, which restored the Torah, told The Post.
The rededication centered on a Siyum, a ceremony that marked the end of the Torah’s long journey and restoration process.
Experts believe the scroll dates back to 1700 — and is made up of the same ink and parchment used in the U.S. Constitution.
It was in Europe when the Nazis came to power, but survived annihilation and was rescued from communist Czech oppression, according to MST.
During the Second World War, around 1,800 Torah scrolls from extinguished Jewish communities of the German and Czech regions were collected in Prague.
The scrolls were left to rot in a damp, abandoned synagogue for nearly 30 years until philanthropist Ralph Yablon bought 1,564 of them from the Czech-Slovakian government in 1964 and brought them to London.
Jewish New Yorkers today continue to feel uncertainty toward Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s attempts at meeting the needs of the community, said cantor Ari Priven.
Still, community members told The Post that the anniversary of Kristallnacht is a reminder that the events that occurred in Europe can happen again, regardless of leadership.
“Do I think that what happened in Germany or in Poland could happen here? Yes,” congregant Myriam, who joined the synagogue in 1988, said.
“The hatred of the Jew is so deep and so profound that I ask the question, what is it about us that bothers everybody?”
