Editor’s note: This article mentions murder, the Holocaust, antisemitism and Nazi regime.
Monday was cold and rainy but over 30 people joined together in the Center for Judaic, Holocaust, and Peace Studies to hold a service for the transfer of the Orphan Scroll from the Temple of the High Country to the center on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“A Torah scroll is the most precious possession for any Jewish community,” said Kurt Love, president of the Temple of the High Country during his remarks.
According to the program for the service, the Orphan Scroll is named as such because its origins are unknown, though it is believed to originate in either what was Czechoslovakia or Bohemia. This Torah was stolen by the Nazis during World War II and rediscovered in Prague post-liberation, and is known as MST1387.
The service began with the Shehecheyanu, an opening prayer to celebrate special occasions in Judaic tradition. Following the prayer was a ritual for the Torah transfer led by Love and a reading of “We Were Children Just Like You,” a poem by Yaffa Eliach, by App State Hillel Vice President Rebecca Sawyer, a senior psychology major.
Sawyer also told the story of Judith Kalkoene, a young girl who was murdered at Auschwitz at 5 years old along with her entire family. Sawyer was paired with Kalkoene for her Bat Mitzvah after connecting with Remember Us, a Holocaust B’nai Mitzvah organization based out of California.
“Every year on Yom Hashoah, I light a candle for her and I’ll say the Mourner’s Kaddish, which is the Hebrew prayer for mourning, and I try and remember on her birthday also and my Bat Mitzvah anniversary,” Sawyer said.
The service included the El Malei Rachamim and Mourner’s Kaddish, which Love said during the service does not mention death but rather is a prayer to God during all moments of life.
To close the service, senior music performance major Caroline Lipson, the religious and cultural chair for App State Hillel, read the Oseh Shalom, which is a prayer longing for peace. After the prayer, the group sang “Ken Y’hi Ratzon,” whose three verses sing of safety for individuals, others and all together as one.
“Having the scroll here and being able to tell its story in this setting really lets us make this important story available and accessible to a much broader audience than we’d be able to reach otherwise,” Love said. “That’s part of the reason why we want the scroll to live here with us, to share the story, and it’s an essential piece of the center’s mission.”
The service for the Orphan Scroll comes at a time of resurgence of antisemitic rhetoric.
“You know, people are quick to judge people on their Judaism rather than their politics,” Sawyer said. “If you do disagree with someone politically, it’s different than just immediately assuming that they defer from you and hating them because they’re Jewish or having an opinion because they’re Jewish.”
Love said antisemitism thrives in an atmosphere of hate and ignorance, but he is hopeful that continuing to be present in the Boone community will create awareness of what it means to be Jewish.
“We consider every single one of us to be ambassadors for the Jewish faith and the Jewish people and to establish an environment where wherever we go, we can leave and somebody there can say, ‘I met Jewish people and they were pretty cool,” Love said. “That’s always the goal.”
