Southington Congregation to Observe Holocaust Remembrance Day

Southington Congregation to Observe Holocaust Remembrance Day with Fundraising Concert to Restore Damaged Scroll from Destroyed Czech Jewish Community

Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation (GSJC) will hold a special event for their annual observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah. On April 27, 2014, Beth Rosenblatt, congregant and Cheshire music teacher, has arranged for her students to perform the Holocaust Cantata: Songs from the Camps.  This multimedia performance will also include a slide show prepared by the youth in the choir.

Yom HaShoah is observed annually to remember the date of the Warsaw uprising. This surprise armed response from the ghetto residents against the Nazis slowed the deportation of the Jews to concentration camps and saved many lives. The religious service includes special memorial prayers, remembrances of Holocaust atrocities (for both Jews and others under Nazi occupation) and inspires attendees to prevent this from happening again.

This concert will incorporate aspects of the traditional service. The Cantata was compiled and arranged by Donald McCullough from songs, originally in Polish, found in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC and premiered at the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in 1998. The work is comprised of songs written by prisoners of different faiths while incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps. The readings are based on interview transcripts, historical data and the story of Irena Augustynska Kafka. It is written for chorus, piano and cello.

The upcoming event has particular meaning for the 40 family congregation.  In 2012, led by Rabbi Shelley Kovar Becker, they assumed responsibility of becoming “shomrim,” or guardians, of a Torah scroll, through the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust, the repository of Torah scrolls recovered after World War II from destroyed Jewish communities. After donors came forward, an application to Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust was completed and accepted. Subsequently, a group of seven congregants accompanied by the Rabbi drove to New Jersey where three rescued Torahs were being stored. After viewing all three, the group unanimously selected one which although in poor condition, was beautiful.

Written in the early part of the 18th century the GSJC scroll is one of the oldest in the repository’s collection. The Jewish Museum in Prague tracked its origins to a region of central Bohemia, some 45 miles southeast of Prague. In the town of Caslav, a Jewish congregation of around 300 members was founded in 1870, dwindling to 119 by 1930.

While extensive damage to the scroll has rendered it non-kosher for regular usage, the Torah has not been relegated to a display case, Becker says. A specialist in Torah restoration has examined the scroll and determined that it can be repaired and made kosher. The small congregation will use this concert to start a funding campaign to accomplish this goal.

The public is invited to attend the Holocaust Cantata: Songs from the Camps at Gishrei Shalom Jewish Congregation’s home, First Congregational Church of Southington, 37 Main Street at 3:30 p.m. on April 27th.  The concert is free, but donations will be appreciated. For more information, please visit www.gsjc.org , email gsjc777@aol.com or call 860-276-9113.