New Torah for Southampton Jewish center

In the midst of a drawn-out zoning dispute, Southampton’s only synagogue put the finishing touches yesterday on its very own handwritten Torah scroll, a task that took three years to complete.

“Today’s ceremony is a show of unity and a show of togetherness,” said Rabbi Rafe Konikov of Chabad of Southampton Jewish Center.

Beginning in 1992, a small group gathered each week to pray in a rented meeting room in the Southampton Inn, but the congregation gradually outgrew its quarters. The purchase in 1999 of a three-story house on Hill Street set off a squabble over operating a synagogue in a residential neighborhood.

“Clearly, what we are seeing is a people who are uncomfortable with a particular faith,” said Suffolk Legis. Jay Schneiderman (R-Montauk), referring to the dispute. “And clearly, we will prevail.”

Much of the work to inscribe the Torah was done in Israel, but Konikov attributed significance to penning the last line of the scroll in Southampton, one of the oldest English settlements in the United States, he said.

“This is the first time a Torah scroll is being completed in this town,” he said. “It represents the bedrock principles of our founding fathers.”

“It’s part of the last step,” Gadi Benhamo, 44, of Southampton, said of the dedication. “We have a Torah. We have a synagogue. We have a home for our children.”

Despite the dispute over zoning and parking issues, Mayor Mark Epley and several other public officials attended the celebration.

“It’s an ongoing battle that they’ve had,” Epley said. “It’s not over at this point of time, and we hope there will be some sort of resolution.”

For about eight years, the absence of a Torah required the synagogue to borrow one, Konikov said.

After finishing writing the last line of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of Moses, a procession of rabbis and synagogue members, holding torches symbolizing the guiding light that the wisdom of the Torah imparts, walked down Hill Street.

Jacqui Ekstein, 50, of Manhattan and a summer Hamptons resident, who started the services at the Southampton Inn more than a decade ago, sponsored the creation of the scroll, whose 303,500 letters are meticulously written by a scribe using a feather quill.

The Torah was dedicated in memory of Ekstein’s parents, both Holocaust survivors. Jacqui’s father, Chaskel, whose name was No. 76 on Schindler’s list, was spared from dying in Plashow concentration camp, although Chaskel’s son perished there. Ekstein’s mother, Renna, was one of the few who survived Auschwitz.

Ekstein’s voice broke as he told the assembled crowd of about 300 people the story of his family.

“We have come from hiding under floorboards and surviving the gas chamber,” Ekstein said, “to dancing in the street to celebrate dedicating the Torah.”