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| By Ellis Shuman February 1, 2002 |
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Hundreds of Torah scrolls, part of Nazi loot confiscated from Lithuania's Jewish community during the Holocaust, arrived in Israel on Wednesday in an emotional ceremony. The mission to retrieve the scrolls, some hundreds of years old and in various stages of neglect, was complicated and necessitated the intervention of U.S. President George W. Bush.
"A stranger would not understand this, the trembling we feel when we look and touch these ancient Torah scrolls," said President Moshe Katsav, who presided at the Ben-Gurion International Airport ceremony marking the arrival of the scrolls and other sacred books from Lithuania.
After over a year and a half of negotiations, and internal
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"We are honored to bring the books back"
- Dep. FM Michael Melchior
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arguments among Jewish organizations over the scrolls' future, the Lithuanian government agreed to transfer the collection of Jewish artifacts to Israel. Parts of 309 Torah scrolls, many of them incomplete, bore evidence to the rich history of Lithuanian Jewry, and included texts that belonged to the famed Talmudic scholar, the Gaon of Vilna (presently known as Vilnius) in the 18th century. Due to its Jewish heritage and highly regarded schools of Judaic studies, Vilnius was considered in previous centuries as the Lithuanian Jerusalem.
"We are honored to bring the books back," said Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior, who had traveled to Vilnius with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau to bring back the scrolls. "Some will be buried, because they were destroyed over the years, and some will be read from and studied again in living Jewish communities.
Dan Mariaschin, Executive Vice President of B'nai B'rith, who played a key role in the effort to release the Torahs, said in Vilnius "that many of the scrolls will find new life in synagogues and communities that need them, and will use them, reminds us of their 'living' attributes. And those generations of Jews who will use them and care for them will always be reminded of the great Jewish tradition from which they sprang."
Israeli scribes will examine the scrolls to see how many remain complete. The collection is believed to consist of 31 complete scrolls and hundreds of fragments. From a Halachic, Jewish traditional viewpoint, none of the scrolls are now considered kosher after six decades of abandonment under Nazi and then Soviet rule, but some may be reparable.
Arguments delay transfer of Torah scrolls for years
During the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered most of Lithuania's estimated 220,000 Jews and collected the Torah scrolls with the intention of creating a museum marking the destroyed community.
The late Antanas Ulpis, a non-Jewish Lithuanian librarian, rescued most of the scrolls between 1945 and 1948 from Soviet attempts to burn religious objects. They then lay in the chapel of St. George Church in Vilnius for decades, until they were discovered six years ago.
Internal bickering by various worldwide Jewish bodies over how to distribute the scrolls led to Lithuania moving them to its National Library and declaring that they formed a part of its cultural heritage. Lithuania refused to allow the scrolls to be moved out of the country
After being subjected to intense international pressure, Lithuania invited the Conference of European Rabbis to suggest an acceptable solution. "We visited Vilna and examined, catalogued, and negotiated with the director of the National Library, Mr. Vladas Bulavas, in an attempt to reach an agreeable solution for the distribution of the scrolls," said Rabbi Abba Dunner, secretary-general of the organization.
In October 2000, the Lithuanian parliament passed a special law allowing for the transfer of the scrolls, entitled "The Law for the Transfer of Jewish Torah Scroll Writings from the National Library in Vilnius to Hechal Shlomo (seat of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate) in Jerusalem."
Deliberation over the transfer of the scrolls and their future continued, and involved the American Jewish Committee, B'nai Brith, the European rabbis and Israel's chief rabbis. These arguments only gave the Lithuanians new reasons to hold onto the scrolls.
In July, representatives of various Jewish organizations from around the world formed an ad hoc committee, which agreed to deal collectively with the question of the distribution of the scrolls. Additional international pressure was necessary to win the Lithuanian government's approval.
"When the Lithuanian president visited Washington earlier this month, the issue of returning the scrolls was raised at every one of his meetings, including those with the National Security Council and at his meeting with Bush," Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of International Jewish Affairs at the American Jewish Committee, told the Jerusalem Post.
"The president told [Lithuanian] President Valdas Adamkus that he must 'deal with the issue of Jewish heritage,"' he said.
Now that the scrolls are in Israel, a seven-member committee chaired by Melchior will decide how to distribute the scrolls to various synagogues, schools and organizations throughout the world.
Torah scrolls' arrival doesn't end controversy
"We are critical of the fact that some [of the scrolls] stayed behind," Baker said, referring to the fact that Lithuanian decided to retain 13 complete scrolls as important artifacts of its cultural heritage. He said that he hoped the Lithuanian government would now work to restitute communal property, an issue that it had neglected to deal with.
"This is a scandal," Nazi hunter Ephraim Zuroff told Ha'aretz. "They're giving Lithuania [favorable] publicity for despicable behavior." Zuroff charged that Lithuania failed to live up to its responsibility to bring Nazi war criminals to trial. Lithuania has also been assailed for underrating the extent of Nazi collaboration and sympathy in its society.
The chairman of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Naftali Lavie, echoed Zuroff's displeasure at the publicity given to the scrolls' return. "Lithuania was interested in getting good public relations in the world, and Jewish organizations ran over there because everyone wanted credit for this mission," he said.
Lavie, former spokesman of the Ministry of Defense and brother of Chief Rabbi Lau, played a key role in the Torah scrolls' return. "There are Torah scrolls like this all over Europe, and if you want, we could gather them together and bring them to Israel," he said.
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