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Torah scrolls

The reverse side of a Torah scroll fragment offered for auction in Norway, bearing a handwritten German address. The auction house claimed the parchment had been used by SS soldiers to wrap a package sent to Germany during the Holocaust. (Courtesy of RUTH: Remember Us The Holocaust, via JTA)
October 29, 2026, 1:20 am
Norwegian auction of Nazi-defaced Holocaust-era Torah fragment sparks outcry, then intervention
Israel’s Foreign Ministry praises efforts to prevent sale of ‘sacred manuscript looted by Nazis,’ calfskin fragment to be donated to San Diego Holocaust remembrance organization
By Deborah Danan
Illustrative photo of a young man reading from a Torah scroll (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
July 29, 2026, 6:47 am
Over a dozen Torah scrolls stolen from synagogue in Paris suburb
President of local Jewish community association says theft was carried out by ‘professional team,’ notes ‘nothing else was stolen apart from Torah items of immeasurable value’
By Shira Li Bartov
Illustrative: Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal prepares Torah scrolls at the synagogue of the Chabad community in Berlin, Germany, Friday, October 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
August 28, 2025, 4:24 am
Two congregations, two opinions as Torahs hit the floor at separate NYC synagogues
Accidental dropping of the cherished scrolls can impact local communities – and the Jewish news cycle – while how it’s dealt with can teach us much about contemporary Jewish values
By Andrew Silow-Carroll
President Isaac Herzog hosts a ceremony marking the completion of a Torah scroll dedicated to Sgt. Segev Schwartz, 20, who was killed in battle on October 7, 2023, ahead of Memorial Day in April 2025. His parents, Sarah and Ehud, are seated to the left and to the right. (Courtesy of Ayelet HaShachar)
April 28, 2025, 7:29 pm
Torah scroll honoring soldier slain on Oct. 7 completed ahead of Memorial Day
Sgt. Segev Schwartz, 20, fell in the battle at the IDF’s Sufa outpost during the Hamas onslaught
By Rossella Tercatin
Composite image showing the approaching fires in Los Angeles' Topanga Canyon neighborhood, with rabbis Dovid Weiss (left) and Mendy Piekarski (right) of Chabad of Topanga with rescued Torah scrolls. (images courtesy Chabad of Topanga)
January 14, 2025, 1:52 am
It’s a mitzvah: LA fires activate Jewish law of saving Torah scrolls from calamity
While saving human lives is top priority according to Jewish tradition, the mandate to save Torahs is a close second, propelling congregants into still-raging fires before evacuation
By Gavriel Fiske
Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin dedicate a new Torah scroll to their son, hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin on July 18, 2024 (Courtesy)
July 22, 2024, 9:49 am
Family of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin dedicates new Torah scroll to his return
Scribe completes last 120 letters, each one inscribed for a remaining hostage in Gaza, while joined by hundreds of members of the family’s Jerusalem community
By Jessica Steinberg
Hostage families attend a ceremony of writing a Torah scroll at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron, in northern Israel on March 10, 2024 (Photo by David Cohen/Flash90)
July 9, 2024, 10:45 am
Parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin launch ‘Week of Goodness’
Family aims to increase kindness, good deeds and generosity in the world in order to help bring about the redemption of 116 remaining October 7 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza
By Jessica Steinberg
Families of Hamas hostages dance at the Western Wall on November 21, 2023 with two new Torah scrolls dedicated to the return of the hostages and in memory of those killed on October 7 (Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
December 12, 2023, 1:24 pm
Daily Briefing Dec. 12: Day 67 – Scribes write Torahs for troops, hostages, kibbutz
Diaspora affairs reporter Canaan Lidor discusses Nahal Oz kibbutz relocation and Torah scrolls on turbo as Tech Israel editor Sharon Wrobel looks at consumer spending since Oct. 7
By ToI Staff
Illustrative: A pointer is used to follow the Hebrew written passages in the Torah. (AP Photo/ Rogelio Solis)
June 8, 2023, 9:05 pm
‘Priceless’ 18th-century Torah to be on ‘Antiques Roadshow’ UK
The Reform Kehillat Kernow congregation in Cornwall calls the incredible scroll its ‘most sacred possession’
By Michelle Rosenberg
A Turkish man, walks on the debris of the heritage houses that destroyed during the devastated earthquake, in the old city of Antakya, southern Turkey, Monday, February 13, 2023. (AP/Hussein Malla)
February 22, 2023, 8:32 pm
Ruins of Turkish city of Antakya tell story of a rich past
Jewish community’s leaders died in 7.8-quake this month; city ‘can be rebuilt, but it will not be like the old one,’ resident says
By Sarah El Deeb
Protesters wave flags showing the face of Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) and march with an effigy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a demonstration organized by The Kurdish Democratic Society Center against Erdogan and Sweden's NATO bid, in Stockholm on January 21, 2023. (Christine OLSSON/TT News Agency/AFP)
January 31, 2023, 6:08 pm
Muslim man says he’s delaying protest Torah burning near Israeli embassy in Sweden
Man has reportedly received approval from Swedish authorities for demonstration, which comes in wake of a far-right politician’s recent burning of a Quran outside Denmark mosque
By David I. Klein
Jack Abraham with his family Torah, which has been used by his family and the Jewish community around the world for almost two decades. (Courtesy via JTA)
July 7, 2022, 9:55 am
New York man says precious family Torah stolen from Las Vegas hotel
Jack Abraham brought the scroll for Shabbat services at trade show, was told the room where he left it was secured; says police told him suspect tried to sell the artifact
By Jacob Henry
Eliyahu David Kay, killed in a terror attack in Jerusalem on November 21, 2021. (Instagram / HaShomer HaChadash)
July 4, 2022, 5:33 pm
Family of slain South African immigrant starts global drive to complete Torah scroll
Project to commemorate Eli Kay, who was murdered by a Hamas gunman in Jerusalem, seeks to create portable memorial for trekkers and tour groups in Israel
By Jacob Rivkin
The Rhodes Torah (Amit Dekel Productions via National Library of Israel)
June 1, 2022, 2:18 pm
National Library shows off rare Torah scrolls, including one mufti saved from Nazis
Delicate parchment filmed in time for Shavuot; one was hidden in mosque during WWII; another thought to belong to merchant said to serve as Poland’s king for a day in 16th century
By ToI Staff
Uwe Mader with the Torah scroll fragments he handed over to the city of Görlitz, December 16, 2021. (Pawel Sosnowski via JTA)
December 19, 2021, 9:20 pm
83 years after Kristallnacht, sections of lost Torah scroll resurface in German town
Protestant minister in Görlitz turns over segments of Torah that had been in safekeeping since the anti-Jewish pogrom in 1938
By Toby Axelrod
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