Guardian Since 1973
Bucovice is 18.6 miles east of Brno, capital of the Moravian section of the Czech Republic. Even closer ( 6 miles east) is Slavkov ( formerly known as Austerlitz). During the Holocaust, the Nazis made Slavkov the regional ghetto where Jews of Bucovice and other nearby villages were forced to live until April,1942 when the Jewish ghetto residents were deported to labor and death camps.
Before their expulsion, Bucovice Jews transferred 98 books and 112 ritual objects to the protection of the Central Jewish Museum in Prague. Bucovice was one of the oldest Jewish communities of Moravia. Both it and Mikulov became even more important when Jews of Brno were expelled in 1454 and massively resettled in both towns. Records indicate the building of a new synagogue in 1690 and again in 1853. The Neo-Romanesque synagogue was demolished by Communists in 1966.
According to the Czech Wiki site, the Jewish cemetery in Bucovice is one of the three largest in the Czech Republic. Located at the foot of the castle hill, 2,500 grave sites still are identified as being there. The Brno Jewish community now owns the cemetery and pays for its caretaking.
Three additional congregations have Torahs from Bucovice:
Temple B’nai Israel in Kalamazoo, MI
Temple B’nai Sholom, Rockville Center, NY
Temple Kol Ami Emanu-el, Plantation, FL
Since 2004, a representative from Temple Shomer Emunim has gone to Westminster Synagogue for each major Czech Scrolls reunion.
February 4, 2024 is the 60th anniversary of the rescue and another scrolls reunion.
More than 1,000 Czech Scrolls are today entrusted to guardian organizations ( mostly synagogues) in North America.
For more information about the Czech Scrolls, access the Memorial Scrolls Trust website: memorialscrollstrust.org
Temple Shomer Emunim has been the guardian since June, 1973 of a Czech Torah that survived the Holocaust. It is on loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust at Westminster Synagogue, London UK.
Nearly 1,800 Czech Jewish scrolls ( mostly Torahs, but also Haftorahs) survived the Holocaust. Decades after the Holocaust, we finally know that Jews working at the Prague Museum decided the scrolls and other treasures needed to be protected from Nazi destruction. And so, during WWII they created a plan that allowed them to gather the items from every small to large Czech Jewish Community.
A group of those scrolls was rescued a second time in 1963 from storage in a decrepit Prague synagogue. The communist government of Czechoslovakia needed funds and considered religious objects worthless. A wealthy member of Westminster Synagogue provided the funds, and on February 7, 1964 the rescue was completed when 1,564 scrolls reached their next home: Westminster Synagogue. Our Czech Torah was the 186th scroll unwrapped once safe in London. Hence, it became Scroll #186.
It dates back to the 19th Century and was used by the Jews of Bucovice, a Moravian village with one of the Lichtenstein family chateaus. That portion of Moravia was formerly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where Lichtenstein family dukes ruled several Moravian communities. (Bucovice Chateau became the Treasury for the Lichtenstein castles and chateaus.)
There is no proof where Scroll 186 was written, but nearby Mikulov ( also with a Lichtenstein castle) was one of the largest and most famous centers for Jewish scribes in Moravia and much of Eastern and Central Europe.
This is one of the smaller Czech scrolls. The parchment is 13 and 3/4” in height. Total height from the top to the bottom of the Etz Chaim is 26 1/2”. Unlike most Czech Scrolls, the bottom of one roller still has an identification number that was hand painted onto it when the scroll left the Bucovice Jews. It went to a collection point in Brno, then to Prague.
