Chabad Members Celebrate Special Torah

Hillsborough, NJ — An antique Austrian Torah that survived the Holocaust has been repaired, resanctified and given a new home at the Chabad Jewish Center.

More pictures in the Extended Article

In Vienna after World War II, the late Rabbi Chaim Grunfeld was known for his tireless work to rebuild the city’s Jewish community in the wake of the Holocaust. Now, in his memory, his descendants can enjoy an antique Austrian Torah that also survived the Holocaust.

After six months of restoration in Israel, the Torah has been repaired, resanctified and given a new home at the Chabad Jewish Center of Southern Somerset County on Amwell Road. The congregation is led by Rabbi Shmaya Krinsky and his wife, Miriam Krinsky, who is Rabbi Grunfeld’s granddaughter.

Rabbi Grunfeld was born Dec. 3, 1915, in Michalovce, Slovakia, to a family with a strong rabbinical lineage. In 1942, seeking refuge from the Nazis, he fled to Bratislava, Slovakia, where he hid in an attic for a year.

When he was discovered, he was deported and sent onto a train to Auschwitz, one of the most notorious Nazi death camps.

“It was the second day of the Sukkot holiday on board of the cattle wagon,” Ms. Krinsky said. “My grandfather — never losing his unwavering faith — had just completed the holiday prayer, when a fellow deportee took a prized possession out of his pocket: a saw. Together they managed to cut open the barbed wire on the window of the train, and a group of people jumped off, among them my grandfather.

”He then hid out in wheat bundles on deserted fields, where the SS at one point poked their rifles into his body. My grandfather remained silent — and lived to tell the tale,“ she added. ”Unfortunately, that is all we know about how he survived the Holocaust, as he would never talk about those darkest years of his life.“

Rabbi Grunfeld’s entire family — including his mother, 10 siblings, their spouses and 85 children — was murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, but he would go on to have a family of his own. In 1948, he married another survivor, Deborah Spira, and settled in Bratislava, where he helped other Jews escape from Eastern Europe.

Two years later, to escape the KGB, who was after him for his Jewish communal work, he fled to Vienna.

In 1950, he made arrangements to immigrate to Israel with his young family. They already had completed their paperwork and had sent some belongings ahead, but just before they left, Rabbi Grunfeld realized how badly they were needed in Vienna. The family stayed, and went on to organize Viennese Jews.

Rabbi Grunfeld wanted to make sure other survivors felt connected to their heritage, and to each other. He organized classes for adults and summer camps for their children, and held religious services in the bedroom of his two-room home. Slowly, Vienna’s Jewish community grew, and in 1964, Grunfeld became the city’s rabbi.

The Torah was donated in Rabbi Grunfeld’s name by Moshe Friedman, one of the survivors Rabbi Grunfeld had taken under his wings after the Holocaust. Mr. Friedman had lost his entire family in the Holocaust, and never remarried, and the Grunfelds became his second family.

It’s unclear how the Torah survived World War II in Austria , but it must have been hidden carefully, and has not been used since, said Rabbi Krinsky. The Torah was completed and dedicated at a May 6 ceremony at the Jewish Community Center in Bridgewater, an event that featured live music and dancing, a festive dinner, children’s entertainment and a scribe who showed everyone the tricks of the trade.

”Torah“ is the name used for both the Jewish holy text containing the five books of Moses — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy — and the sacred scroll that contains them.

As a holy object, the Torah is used during religious services as a source of readings, but the rituals surrounding its keeping go well beyond those of an ordinary book. When not in use, a Torah is housed in an ”ark,“ a reference to the Ark of the Covenant, and is dressed in a protective jacket of fine fabric or other accessories, including a fine silver crown.

In many ways, a Torah is treated like a human being, Rabbi Krinsky said — congregants stand when the Torah is presented as they would for an honored guest. When a Torah has been defiled through improper usage or even one letter of more than 300,000 is damaged, it must be fixed and made kosher again.

If it is irreparably damaged, it is buried carefully and ceremoniously, like a loved one, he added.

When an older Torah is rededicated, its final words aren’t finished until its dedication ceremony, when a scribe uses a feather quill and ink to inscribe the final letters on the parchment.

At the Bridgewater ceremony, members of the congregation stood behind the scribe as he finished the Torah and posed for pictures. Then the Torah was dressed in its new navy blue velvet mantle and crowned with a silver crown and lifted into the air.

Singing joyfully, members of the Chabad carried it under a white chuppah, a wedding canopy, out into the center’s parking lot with a parade of people dancing behind.

Inside, Mr. Friedman held the Torah and sang prayers with unabashed emotion. When he was done, the music and dancing resumed. The evening continued with a festive dinner, a special program for kids and musical entertainment for the adults. Mr. Grunfeld’s daughter, Chana Weiser, who had flown in from Vienna, Austria, for the occasion, addressed the crowd, recounting her father’s life story.

Howard Margulies, of the Somerset section of Franklin, was among those who got to hold the Torah. He watched the dancing with his father, Marvin Margulies, a Holocaust survivor.

Howard hadn’t been to services in 10 years, but after a year with the congregation, he said he is impressed with its offerings. His daughter, Rosalind, 6, just started Hebrew school this year.

”They make it special for the kids, and make it fun and educational,“ Mr. Margulies said. ”Everyone’s welcome.”