The Czech Torah Scroll Project

Czech Torah Project at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda                            f The Ktav  f   «   מחדש   הבריאה  (the re-creation)   »* A sefer Torah contains precisely 304, 805 Hebrew letters in a special script (ktav), all following a myriad of halachic rules where the major halacha are found in the Talmud and the Masechet Soferim (The Tractate of the Scribes). The letters are in Ktav Ashurit , and we note differences in calligraphy; for example, the calligraphy differs between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Torah scrolls.   There are also differences in the writing implements used.   An Ashkenazi scribe (sofer) will use quills whereas a Sephardi sofer will use reeds. Tagin —decorative « crowns » are placed on letters and are composed of strokes resembling the small letter zayin .   These tagin also have significance in Talmud and Kabbalah and over time, there have been various studies ( limudim) for them. When we look at the Czech Torah, we imme

Czech Torah Project at Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda ~   בראשית   ~ « naděje na návrat »   (hope for return)* The Torah scroll that we are restoring comes from Czechoslovakia where over 300,000 Jews lived prior to World War II.   In 1942, members of the existing Jewish community in Prague brought a large collection of Judaica which included over 1,500 Torah scrolls to the Central Jewish Museum in Prague from synagogues and communities in Bohemia and Moravia that were destroyed at the hands of the Nazis.   These members then « sorted, classified and catalogued [every artifact] and arranged the [Torah] scrolls in stacks reaching from the floor to the ceiling. » (The Czech Torah Network, A Holocaust Education Project, 2003, The Story of the Jewish Torahs of Czechoslovakia, Chapter One – The Trip from Prague to London, para. 2)   After the war, the Torah scrolls were moved to a synagogue in Michle, a district of Prague.   The Czech Torah Network (2003, A Holocaus