Coming Soon - MST Education Pack

This is MST #931 from Horazdovice, currently in the care of the Westminster Synagogue in London. It is featured in the new Education Pack shortly to be released by the Memorial Scrolls Trust working together with the UK Holocaust Memorial Day organisation. Watch this space ... watch all our spaces, i.e., the blog, the Twitter feed, the FB page and the website for further details!

Visiting the Scribal Workshop

During her recent trip to Florida, Mrs Evelyn Friedlander visited the workshop of Sofer on Site. In this picture she is being welcomed by Libby Lerner. The sofrim here have worked on many of our scrolls across the United States, and have been helping us to find some of the scrolls that were lost over the years. We are excited that Rabbi Moshe Druin will be able to join us for our Anniversary Service next month.

MST in Florida

We just got this photo via mobile phone of our Chair, Evelyn Friedlander, speaking at Ramat Shalom Synagogue in Plantation, Florida last night. What a wonderful way to begin our Anniversary year! If your community is unable to join us in London next month, perhaps you would consider creating a celebratory event in your own sanctuary. Let us know how we may support you for such a project!

IF YOU ARE TRAVELLING WITH ONE OF OUR SCROLLS

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FOR TRAVELLING WITH MST SCROLLS
Please note that if you are bringing one of our scrolls to the Anniversary Service next month, and you are travelling by plane, the scroll is NOT to be transported in the baggage compartment of the plane. It should be carefully wrapped in soft material, placed in a holdall such as a sports bag, and stored in the overhead luggage lockers in the passenger compartment. The only exception to this is if the scroll is being professionally shipped in by a company in a proper packing box. Thank you!

UPDATE:  The rabbi of a Massachusetts congregation, while making plans to bring their scroll to our service, told us that he "found a great 'deal' for transporting the Scroll on Virgin Atlantic. They are charging only $240 r/t for the scroll to 'sit' in the seat next to (him) on the flights. It is their "Seat Plus" deal. MUCH less expensive than a full fare seat on another airline."  Thank you Rabbi JP!

Here's a link to the Seat Plus page in case you are interested.

The 50th Anniversary of the Arrival of the Czech Scrolls - An Invitation to Scroll-Holders

Dear Friends

On 9^th February 2014 people from around the world will gather in London to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Czech Torah scrolls from communist Europe.  The tragedy of these extraordinary relics is that they are often the only surviving relics of some 153 Czech Jewish communities whose members were deported and exterminated in the Nazi death camps during WW2.  The Nazis sent the men, women and children who once used these Torah scrolls to their death, destroying their synagogues and communities but the holy scrolls survived. For 20 years following the war, they remained in a disused synagogue in a Prague suburb until the communist government, in need of hard currency, decided they should be sold. They were thus acquired by Westminster Synagogue and, in 1964, 1564 scrolls arrived in London.  Many of the scrolls were in a pitiful condition – torn, damaged by fire and water – a grim testimony to the fate of the people who had once prayed with them.  

The Memorial Scrolls Trust has given these precious scrolls a second life by lovingly restoring them and loaning them to over 1,400 communities around the world, thereby spreading their message to new generations in diverse communities and institutions such as yours.   

The particular history of these scrolls means that they are dynamic messengers, especially as we near the day when witnesses to the events of the Holocaust will no longer be with us. The scrolls are not only a reminder of the atrocities committed against our brothers and sisters in Europe, but also help us with our renewed mission:

To Remember the Czech communities before the Holocaust

To Challenge us to confront prejudice and hatred

To Inspire us into action to commit to a Jewish life and education, and build bridges across communities

We warmly invite you to join us at a Commemorative Service to be held at Westminster Synagogue, Kent House, London SW7 1BX at 6:30pm on 9th of February 2014.

We hope you can join us for what will be a very meaningful and moving occasion, bringing your Torah with you.  It would be appreciated if you could please RSVP to the following email by January 15^th.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at info@memorialscrollstrust.org

Wish very best wishes,

Evelyn Friedlander

Chair

Memorial Scrolls Trust

Edith Kraus z"l

News has reached us of the death of the pianist Edith Kraus last September at the age of 100. A survivor of Terezin, we note that she premiered Viktor Ullmann's Piano Sonata Number 6 in the camp. Her obituary in the Daily Telegraph states:

"Edith Kraus performed more than 300 concerts over three years at Terezin, often of music by Brahms, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. 'Naturally this helped me to get through that time,' she later recalled.

When asked a few years ago to describe the quality of the music making at the camp, Edith Kraus berated her interviewer, explaining that tone, intonation and timing had been irrelevant: 'You'll never understand, or get close to, what music truly meant to each of us as a sustaining power and as a way of using our skills to inspire - beyond criticism - beyond any superficial evaluation. We were music.'"

The rest of the obituary may be found here.
Watch her speak here.

Have You Heard of Viktor Ullmann?

Aficionados of Czech Jewish music, and those of you who like to czech out new sounds, may I introduce you to the third in our series of composers - Viktor Ullmann. We hope to feature some of his music in the Memorial Scrolls Trust Service of Celebration on 9th February 2014 at 6:30 pm at Westminster Synagogue in Central London.

Ullmann's father was of Jewish heritage, but renounced his faith and officially converted to Catholicism, apparently to advance his career in the Austrian army.Victor was baptised as a Catholic and lived the majority of his life in the non-Jewish world. It was not until the Nazi antisemitic laws came into effect in Prague that he became identified officially as a Jew. Although he was able to send his two oldest children to England on a Kindertransport, he and his third wife, Elisabeth, were deported to Terezin in 1942. He died in Auschwitz in 1944.

In a biographical essay, Gwyneth Bravo writes:

"Educated in Vienna, Ullmann made important contributions to both Czech and German cultural life as a composer, conductor, pianist and music critic. Shaped by his engagement with Schoenberg's musical philosophy, German aesthetics, as well as the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, Ullmann understood the role of art as central to human spiritual and ethical development ... Within the context of his own compositions, Ullmann used form as a powerful commentary on his own self-sconscious engagement with the traditions of Western art music as he engaged with them in the works of Schoenberg, Mahler and Berg."

You may read the rest of the essay here.

Listen to some of his music here.

Have You Heard of Gideon Klein?

As we begin to prepare the liturgy and music for the Memorial Scrolls Trust Service of Celebration on 9th February 2014 at the Westminster Synagogue in London, we thought it might be interesting to introduce you to some of the Czech Jewish composers whose music we hope to feature on that day. Last week we highlighted the work of Pavel Haas. Today we'd like to present the life and works of Gideon Klein.

Born in Moravia, Klein studied composition at university, but when the Nazis closed all institutions of higher learning after occupying Czechoslovakia, he had to continue under the radar. Since Jews were banned from composing and performing, he worked under several aliases as a concert pianist. He was offered a scholarship by the Royal Academy of Music in London but anti-semitic legislation prevented his emigration and  by the end of 1941 he was deported to the concentration camp at Terezin. In fact, this terrible event gave him the opportunity for artistic expression and alongside Hass and Victor Ullmann he became a major composer from the camp. In 1944 he was sent to Auschwitz, and thence to Fuerstengruber, a coal mine c. 20 miles from the extermination camp. He died in January 1945, as the Fuerstengruber camp was being liquidated.

You may learn more about Gideon Klein and his work here.
A discography of his work may be found here.
Listen to some snippets of his music here.

Have You Heard of Pavel Haas?

Have you heard of Pavel Haas? Probably not. If you are interested in Czech music, you should czech him out :-) He was a composer, sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp for being Jewish. He was a student of Leos Janacek. He was murdered in Auschwitz on the orders of the notorious Josef Mengele.

You may read more about him here.
You may listen to some of his music here.

Buried in Bury

The Memorial Scrolls Trust was on the front page of the most recent edition of the Jewish Chronicle, the main national Jewish newspaper in the United Kingdom. The JC was reporting the schande that is the burial of one of our scrolls. Although it is Orthodox Jewish tradition to bury sacred text that is no longer kosher, the congregation did not have the right to do this because the scroll did not belong to them. It was on loan from the MST. The fact is that they did not even consult the Trust to discuss the matter. Since a torah scroll is made of biodegradable matter it is likely that it has decayed since its burial and thus the prospect of disinterment is unlikely. We are not sure what will happen next.

This is the online text of the JC story:

Buried in Bury: how a synagogue cast historic Sefer Torah aside

By Simon Rocker, August 21, 2013

A Sefer Torah from a historic Czech collection saved from the Nazis has been buried by a Manchester synagogue without permission from the trust that loaned it.

The London-based Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust is furious at the action of Bury Hebrew Congregation and wants the scroll to be returned.

Evelyn Friedlander, chairman of the trust, attacked the burial by Bury shul: “Everyone here is extremely angry. They had no business taking it on themselves to bury it.”

Traditionally, Sifrei Torah which are considered no longer fit for ritual use and beyond repair are buried in a Jewish cemetery.

More than 1,500 scrolls preserved by the Jewish museum in Prague during the Holocaust arrived in London in 1964.

Although some were irreparable, others were restored by the trust, which is housed at the independent Progressive Westminster Synagogue. Over the years 1,400 have been loaned to synagogues across the world.

The 18th-century scroll, loaned to Bury in 1966, comes from Lostice in Moravia. Fifty-nine Jews from Lostice were deported by the Nazis and only three returned after the war.

Mrs Friedlander said, “The scroll is of historical interest.

“They were told at the time that it was on loan and not theirs to dispose of.”

It is unclear when Bury decided to bury the scroll.

Ian Joseph, Bury’s chairman, said this week that “the events referred to with respect to the scroll predate the current shul executive. 

“We will investigate internally the matter and then respond via the appropriate channels with any findings”.

You may also link directly to the JC story here.