08/03/2025
My Polish guide Lukaz called with unexpected news: a resident of Radom was selling two Torah scrolls. After confirming their authenticity through photographs, I knew I had to see them myself.
I flew from Israel to inspect them on the Tenth of Tevet, the fast commemorating Jerusalem's siege and the day Holocaust survivors recite Kaddish for relatives whose death dates are unknown. After visiting Chelmno, a site of mass destruction, I headed to this small city between Warsaw and Lublin.
Winding through backstreets, we found the seller's building. Inside, two large Polish men welcomed us into an apartment that seemed untouched by the past century, its walls covered with Christian imagery. In the living room, two dusty Torah scrolls lay casually on a couch.
I couldn't look away.
Who once read from these scrolls? What fathers danced with them on Simchat Torah? What bar mitzvah boys received their first aliyah? What happened to all those people?
The questions haunted me, but one thing was very clear: these Torah scrolls did not belong here.
With permission, I carefully examined them on the table. There I was in a cramped Polish apartment in a city emptied of Jews, during winter 2020, touching remnants of a vanished world. After negotiating a price, I left with a mission burning inside me.
Though these scrolls were likely no longer usable, I could not abandon them to remain forgotten in foreign hands. When my student heard about this endeavor, he launched a fundraising campaign. His message was simple: help restore Jewish honor.
Read the full article: https://aish.com/two-forgotten-torah-scrolls-in-poland-a-story-of-hope/
