Celebration of 1st Campus Torah Floods Street

About 100 members of the Jewish community on University of Illinois campus, including alumni, students, teachers and rabbis danced and marched their way down Green Street around 2 p.m. Sunday in celebration of completing its first Torah.

Green Street was closed down from Fourth Street to Wright Street for about half an hour for the parade. The parade started at Chabad at Fourth and Healey streets and ended at Illini Union rooms A and B, where there was a dinner for those who participated.

This marks the first time that people affiliated with the Illini Jewish community had the opportunity to partake in the writing of the Torah, which is the centerpiece of the Jewish faith.

“Not only is it dedicated to (the University), it started here, (it was) completed here, and it will stay on this campus for hundreds of years to come,” said Rabbi Dovid Tiechtel, executive director of Chabad. “In every community, you need a Torah scroll because it represents the unity of the people. Our campus had one on loan, we never had one that was started for us, and by us.”

The Torah took up to a year to complete, as every letter is hand-written. A scribe from New York was hired to write the Torah, Tiechtel said.

Students had an opportunity to buy a letter on the Torah to be a part of history.

The Torah was dedicated in memory of the late Bonnie Dayan, who graduated from the University in 1979. She was a strong voice in the Jewish community here on campus for a number of years, said her son, Max Dayan, who was one of the alumni that initiated the project.

“She was a big part of community life wherever she was,” Dayan said. “She inspired a lot of people and had a very big heart with a lot of love to give.”

Dayan went on to explain that dedicating the inscription of the Torah in his mother’s memory is one of the greatest Mitvahs, or good deeds, someone can do to honor someone who has passed because the Torah symbolizes the unification of the Jewish people within their community.

“We compare the writing of a Torah to a wedding,” said Jayme Levine, senior in LAS. “So the Torah is the bride, and we, the community are the husband. Each person who holds the pen while the scribe writes becomes a part of the Torah. Everyone here got to write in it and everyone chipped in money so it is part of the community.”