Agony, Lawsuit Turn into New Torah for Chabad
On Sunday, a Sofer began the painstaking process of transcribing a new Torah scroll for the Chabad of the Rivertowns, a growing Jewish congregation in Dobbs Ferry, NY. The day was a festive one, though the new scroll’s origin is one of hardship.
From LoHud.com:
That is fitting, says Jean-Marc Orlando, who is donating the Sefer Torah, because turning darkness into light is a familiar Jewish story.
Orlando, a former-high-level employee at French bank BNP Paribas and a practicing Orthodox Jew, was attending a 2011 work summit in Amsterdam when his life suddenly careened away from him. He was forced to attend two screenings of a training film that depicted the CEO of Deutsche Bank, a major competitor, as Adolf Hitler.
Orlando, a dual citizen of the United States and France, is of Tunisian ancestry. His grandmother was abducted by the Nazis, only narrowly escaping deportation.
As the video aired at that training session, he fled the building and began to weep on the street outside. That night, he called Rabbi Benjy Silverman, of Chabad of the Rivertowns. The two had been friends since Orlando began attending the nascent congregation in 2006.
“There was no better person to talk to,” Orlando said. “This hit me in my core, and who better to speak to than with my rabbi?”
Click here to continue reading at LoHud.com.
Milhouse
Oh, please. Comparing a business competitor to Hitler is tasteless and over the top, but not even an actual survivor could seriously claim to be traumatised by it, let alone a third-generation survivor who didn’t actually lose anyone. Imagine if he’d seen Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, or Seinfeld’s Soup Nazi episode!
If he’s really that sensitive that’s his problem, not the bank’s, and he should never have ventured out into the world in the first place. The truth is that he was looking for a payout and he got one by means of unconscionable extortion. The money is stolen, and I wonder about the kashrus of the sefer torah that it’s paying for.