Archive Committee Traces 
Siyyumei HaTorah at Beth El

November marks the 33rd anniversary of the first Siyyum HaTorah Celebration—the dedication of Torah Scrolls—in our Main Sanctuary. The Archive Committee recently came across a photo of this important event as well as photos of other Siyyumei HaTorah that took place at the Union Avenue synagogue. Having just celebrated Simchat Torah, we wanted to share the details of these events with you.

Over its 100-year history, our synagogue has been blessed with five celebrations of Siyyum HaTorah, an ancient ritual commemorating the completion and dedication of a Torah Scroll. Siyyum HaTorah is traditionally a festive occasion filled with pageantry as a joyous congregation ceremonially accepts and deposits the new Torah Scroll into the Sanctuary Ark.

First Siyyum, Union Avenue, 1955

Three Torah scrolls were donated in the first Siyyum at Beth El, in May 1955. Donors included Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Kapnick, Dr. and Mrs. Samuel Rosner, and the Flaster Family and Minyan Club. The second Siyyum was celebrated in December 1958, when five new Torah scrolls were welcomed into the synagogue. Donors included Mr. Jacob Solomon, who donated two scrolls; Mr. Harvey Rothenberg and. Mr. William Ullman, who each donated one scroll; and Mr. Mortimer Soloman and Mr. Ralph Friedland, who together donated one scroll. At Beth El’s third Siyyum in March 1963, a new Torah scroll was donated by the friends of past president Mr. Phillip Kasakove and his wife, Arlene, in their honor. The fourth Siyyum at Beth El, and the first to be celebrated in our Main Sanctuary took place on November 9, 1975, when three Sifrei Torah were dedicated. The donors included Mr. and Mrs. Sanford Batkin and Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Batkin; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Shanok and Rabbi and Mrs. Joel Aiman; and Mr. and Mrs. Murray Westreich.

First Siyyum, Union Avenue, 1955
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The Sefer Torah donated by the Batkin family has special historical significance. Written in 1850 and originating in the town of Turnau-Turnov, the Batkin Torah had been stolen by the Nazis during their desecration of synagogues in Bohemia and Moravia. In addition to exterminating the Jewish people, Hitler’s plan was to create a museum that would house the artifacts of an “extinct religion.” One of 1,564 stolen Torah scrolls recovered by Allied forces from a captured warehouse near the end of World War II, the Batkin Torah had been stockpiled for over twenty years in the closed Michle Synagogue in Prague. In 1963, a London art connoisseur arranged for the acquisition of the scrolls, and Ralph Yablon of London financed the undertaking. Czech and British authorities agreed that the scrolls should be held in trust by a noncommercial organization, and through Mr. Yablon’s efforts, the Westminster Synagogue in London was selected.
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First Siyyum in our Main Sanctuary, 1975

In February 1964, Westminster Synagogue acquired the Torah Scrolls, which were examined by an expert who recorded their origin, age, and physical condition. Hundreds of requests for scrolls were made to a Memorial Scrolls Committee, which was organized to distribute them. Among them was a request by the Batkin family, who later received Torah No. 567. In a letter from Mrs. Reginald Sheffer, Honorary Secretary of the Committee, the Batkin Torah was certified to be “definitely fit for reading in the Synagogue in its present state . . . (and) a Scroll where the Atzei Chaim are in good condition.”

Nearly eight years ago, on December 17, 2000, Beth El Synagogue joyfully celebrated its fifth Siyyum HaTorah, when we welcomed the newly completed Torah scroll that our congregation wrote for itself in fulfillment of the mitzvah of K’tivat Hatorah. One year earlier, on December 12, 1999, we kicked off the writing of our Torah with a festive celebration of Hatchalat Hak’tivah, The Writing of the First Letters.