‘UPLIFTING’
OTTAWA CONGREGATION DELIVERS TORAH SCROLL TO SYNAGOGUE NEARLY WIPED OUT IN TANZANIA.
Peres Parpaih couldn’ t sleep on the night that Rabbi Eytan Kenter and a delegation from an Ottawa synagogue delivered a Torah scroll to Arusha, Tanzania.
“This is the most valuable and uplifting gift that we’ve ever been given,” Parpaih, the leader of Arusha’s small, beleaguered Jewish community said in a recent email exchange.
“To be able to hold the Torah again, kiss it, read from it, own it, that means the world to us.”
The community’s previous scroll — brought from Ethiopia by Parpaih’s grandfather — was destroyed in the 1970s when its synagogue came under attack by Christian extremists.
A delegation of 38 people, mostly from Ottawa’s Kehillat Beth Israel Congregation, carried a Torah scroll to Tanzania last month to replace it.
A Torah scroll is one of the holiest objects in Judaism. Consisting of the Five Books of Moses, it forms an essential part of Jewish religious life: Portions of it are read in synagogues four times a week.
“This was a once- in- a- lifetime opportunity: to help restore this community,” said Kenter, senior rabbi at Kehillat Beth Israel. “This was all about helping them claim their place at the Jewish table, to claim their authenticity and legitimacy.”
About 70 people belong to Arusha’s Jewish community, which scattered in the early 1970s after it came under attack by an unfriendly government and evangelical Christians. The community’s synagogue was nationalized and turned into a church. Members of the community were forced underground and many practised Judaism secretly. Others lived as Muslims or Christians.
In the last decade, however, with a friendlier political climate, the community has re-established itself under Parpaih’s leadership. Most of the Jews in Arusha have roots in Yemen and Morocco.
“We are like a small island in the middle of the sea,” Parpaih said of the city’s Jewish community. “We are still very careful.”
So how did an Ottawa religious community 12,000 kilometres away learn of a Jewish island in Africa that needed help? It all began last year when Rabbi Kenter called in a Miami- based firm, Sofer on Site, to assess the condition of Kehillat Beth Israel’s Torah scrolls.
Kehillat Beth Israel was created in July 2016 by the amalgamation of two local synagogues, Agudath Israel Congregation and Congregation Beth Shalom. The newly formed synagogue inherited 33 Torah scrolls from its constituent congregations.
The scrolls, handwritten with ink on kosher parchment by specially trained scribes (“sofers”), require careful handling, storage, maintenance and repairs.
While having the scrolls assessed, Kenter told the sofer he’d like to donate some of Kehillat Beth Israel’s surplus scrolls to underserved communities. A Torah scroll can cost as much as a new car.
Months later, the sofer called Kenter to tell him about an unusual request they’d received from a Jewish community in Tanzania that was looking for a Torah scroll to call its own. Kenter took the request to the synagogue’s board of directors. Then- president Helen Zipes was enthusiastic: “It just sounded like such a wonderful idea,” she said.
The synagogue issued an open invitation to accompany the scroll on its long journey. “You can’t just
Fedex a Torah scroll,” explained Kenter. “It’s a precious object — and people are supposed to travel with it, even in the synagogue.”
People inspired by the idea enlisted for the trip from synagogues across the city and the United States. The delegation left Nov. 5 with the Torah scroll belted into an airplane seat between Rabbi Kenter and his wife. Along with the ornate scroll, the group brought prayer books, prayer shawls, phylacteries, and toys and books for the community’s children.
At the Arusha airport, Kenter presented Parpaih with the Torah scroll; a dedication ceremony was held the following day. The scroll was paraded into the city’s synagogue under a wedding canopy, and for the first time in decades, a religious service was held in Arusha with a Torah scroll at its centre.
Kenter read from the Torah as individual members of the congregation were called up to recite a blessing ( an aliyah). “They touched and kissed the Torah: It was a way for them to claim that object,” said Kenter.
Torah scrolls are written in Hebrew without vowels; the words must be chanted or sung. Parpaih is now studying Jewish law, scriptures and Hebrew online so that he can learn the skills required to read from it.
A lawyer, university lecturer and father of five, Parpaih is the son of the Jewish community’s former leader. He has been working to restore Jewish life in Arusha for years. The gift of a Torah scroll, he said, has “brought light” back into his community.
“We don’t have the right words to thank all those involved in this gift,” he said. “Ever since I was young, it has been my dream to see it again among us and pray with a Torah.”
Parpaih has launched an expedition company that offers kosher safaris in an attempt to sustain the Jewish community in Arusha. He wants to improve its Sunday school and build a compound around Arusha’s synagogue with a guest house and mikveh ( ritual bath).
Rabbi Kenter said Kehillat Beth Israel plans on offering Hebrew lessons to the community via Skype. “We’re hoping that this is just the beginning, not the end, of our relationship,” he said.