Ukraine Scribe Lauded for Torah Restorations

The United Jewish Community of Ukraine bestowed its “International Award” on Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Reuven Margolin of the National Scribal Center in Dnepropetrovsk in recognition for his work on restoring two centuries-old Torah scrolls and saving them from an almost certain burial.

“I accept this high mark of distinction on behalf of the National Scribal Center and the entire Jewish community of Dnepropetrovsk,” Margolin told United Jewish Community of Ukraine executive director Joseph Akselrud after receiving the award. “I am happy that we are working on such complex and large-scale projects and that the center and its scribes, under the direction of Rabbi Elisha Baram, will surely further fruitful cooperation for the benefit of all Jews of Ukraine.”

In March 2010, Margolin wrote what was believed at the time to be the largest mezuzah, a panel of parchment bearing verses from the Torah that is affixed to a doorpost. Measuring a whopping 40 centimeters in length, it was surpassed by a slightly larger one that was erected at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel six months later.

In addition to writing and restoring Torah scrolls and writing mezuzahs, ritual scribes also craft the Jewish prayer boxes known as tefillin.

“Torah scrolls, mezuzahs and tefillin are fundamental to Judaism,” explained Dnepropetrovsk Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky. “It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Jewish scribal arts for the revival of Jewish life. In addition, the recovery of damaged scrolls, scorched by the war and the Holocaust [and witnesses to] the horrific tragedies of the Jewish people, can be likened to the resurrection of the dead, the miracle of rebirth.”