Jews of Ahmedabad, India, welcome Torah scroll

Published on September 13, 2012

The small Jewish community of Ahmedabad, India, where a store called Hitler recently changed its name, held a synagogue celebration to dedicate a new Torah scroll.

Never Too Old to Write a Letter ... of Torah

Published on March 25, 2009

The Jewish Home for the Aging has never had a Torah it could call its own. Since the home first opened in 1912, synagogues or individuals have donated Siferei Torah to the senior-living community, but the scrolls were often old and tarnished, with faded letters or finger smudges on the parchment. These Torahs are considered pasul, or unfit for public reading, but they were the only ones available to the home for religious services.

VIDEO: Torah dedication by Chabad of Thousand Oaks

Published on June 25, 2008

Chabad of Thousand Oaks was honored to receive a Torah, generously donated by Rabbi Mordechai and Ethel Bryski in memory of their parents (great-grandparents of Rabbi Chaim Bryski, Rabbi of Chabad of Thousand Oaks), survivors of the Holocaust. This scroll was rescued from the Holocaust as well, and was painstakingly restored before coming to its permanent home at the Thousand Oaks Jewish Center.

Shavuot 5768: Praise for the scroll

Published on June 9, 2008

In a knowledge world ruled by books and pages and digitized memory, why do Jews hold onto the scroll? Could it be that rolled along together somewhere in our minds with the love of Torah is the love of scroll?

Classnotes: Milken High School rededicates Torah scroll

By Julie G Fax
Published on October 26, 2006

A Torah scroll that twice survived extinction was ushered to its new home in the Lainer Beit Mirdash of Milken Community High School on October 19.

Circuit

Published on September 21, 2006

Circuit News.

USC Trojans march for restored Torah; Backyard tashlich in Fairfax

Published on September 21, 2006

USC Trojans march for restored Torah; backyard tashlich in Fairfax.

Imagining Caleb

By Rabbi Zoë Klein
Published on July 8, 2004

Our Torah portion devotes more than 60 verses to the census of the Israelites.

New Torahs Mark Holiday Celebration

By Andrea Adelson
Published on May 6, 2004

Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates the receiving of the Torah, will be honored this month with special tributes by two area congregations. Figuring prominently is the holiest of all Jewish books, but each event has its own twist.

The Case of the Missing Torah

By Gaby Wenig
Published on March 4, 2004

A Montreal resident claims that a Torah she loaned to a local senior home has illegally ended up in a Southern California synagogue. And now she's on the hunt to find it.

A New L.A. Shtibl

By Julie G Fax
Published on May 14, 2001

Community Briefs.

The Price of Freedom

By Rabbi Dov Fischer
Published on February 1, 2001

To facilitate pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captive Jews from secular prisons) we are commanded to go so far as to sell a community's Torah scroll. Yet it is hard to rejoice that Bill Clinton pardoned four chassidim from the village of New Square, N.Y., along with an alleged tax evader who donated megabucks to Israel. In contrast to the complex moral and ethical questions that grated pro-and-con during discussions over the possible pardons of Michael Milken and Jonathan Jay Pollard, there is something unequivocally outrageous in Clinton's decisions to pardon the four Squarer chassidim and the international oil merchant whose dealings prompted the Justice Department to allege, among other things, tax evasion and trading illegally with Iran.