Join Fabrangen in Welcoming the Slobodka Torah to the Community

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Washington Ethical Society, 7750 16th Street NW, Washington

Please join Fabrangen in the rededication of a rescued Holocaust Torah for new life in the Fabrangen community.

3:00-6:00 p.m.: Torah fair

• Watch as the final letters of the Torah are inscribed
• Learn about the Slobodka Torah and its community, the scribal arts, and the Save-a-Torah foundation’s work to rescue Holocaust Torah scrolls
• Study Torah
• Try your hand at Hebrew calligraphy
• Have a formal portrait taken of you and your family or friends (fundraiser for Project Hope)

6:15 p.m.: Ceremony for the completion of the Torah

Please bring festive food according to the following assignments:

For more information, contact Dale Lupu (dlupu@abhpm.org, 301-434-3786) or Susan Barocas (shbarocas@earthlink.net).

Complete Schedule of Events Celebrating the Slobodka Torah

Information on Slabodka/Slobodka and the Slobodka Torah

General Information About the Jewish Community of Slobodka

Slobodka was the site of a great yeshiva and community that had some Zionist

energy and eventually moved to Hebron. Some of its students were killed in the 1929 Hebron massacre. It had at least one rabbi, Nosson Zvi Finkel, "Alter of Slabodka," who was prominent in the mussar (Torah/ethical behavior) movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slabodka

http://www.calsky.com/lexikon/en/txt/n/no/nosson_zvi_finkel.php

Where Is Slabodka?
http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/belarus/map/p2669/slabodka.html

Personal Narratives

http://www.tzemachdovid.org/Musar/slobodka.html

Survival testimonial of a Jewish man from Sladbodka who refers to the church and its big vault, which reflects the story of our Torah scroll. http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/braslaw/bra445.html

Yizkor Books

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/braslaw/braslaw.html (Scroll to the bottom for specific links to Slobodka.)

Slobodka During the Holocaust

All information below is from the U.S. Holocaust Museum exhibition, “Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto.”

"Slobodka, the site of the Kovno Ghetto, was home to a distinguished institution of Jewish scholarship and piety before the war, the Slobodka Yeshiva. In June 1941 the Germans and Lithuanians conducted pogroms in Slobodka, killing and assaulting the leaders of this once vibrant religious community. Pogroms continued throughout Kovno, as synagogues were defiled. In one, they shot stray dogs and cats and wrapped the corpses in torn Torah scrolls.

Despite the devastation, pious Jews organized makeshift synagogues where they prayed covertly and continued to observe Jewish law and holidays. In 1942, when the Germans began a systematic confiscation of all books and religious items, a large portion of books where hidden to be used in clandestine study houses. After a full day of forced labor, Jews studied sacred texts in attics and basements of the ghetto.

Visit the online companion to the exhibition, "Hidden History of the Kovno Ghetto / Inside the Ghetto / Religious Life" at the United States Holocaust Memorial. The physical exhibition was open until 10/3/99. The exhibition is recommended for adults and children grade 7 or higher.

Go to this link:

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/kovno/religion/religion.htm#

"We are more obligated than ever to show that we are spiritually free."

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry, Responsa from the Holocaust, 1942-1944

Rabbi Ephraim Oshry became one of the ghetto's leading religious authorities after the murder of more senior rabbis. In addition to his official job for the ghetto's Sanitation Department, he taught clandestine religious classes to children and adults. In addition, the ghetto's residents sought his advice on how to observe religious law under adversity. He researched each question and issued an answer, based on rabbinical precedent. He wrote down the questions on pieces of paper torn from empty sacks of concrete and buried them in tin cans. After the war he published these responsa—questions and answers."