From the Ladino minyan of Canarsie to the amud in Passaic

The scroll

This is a Sephardic sefer Torah of the twentieth century, written on bright surface-finished klaf in dense black ink that has neither browned nor flaked. The hand is ksav Vellish, the classic Sephardic script. The ches is formed of a vav and a zayin joined by a chatoteres. The tzadi follows the Arizal, its yud reversed. The yudin are written to Rabbeinu Tam, the lower left kotz drawn complete beside the upper thorn. That blend, a Vellish body carrying the chatoteres ches and the Arizal’s tzadi with yudin held to Rabbeinu Tam, is the hand of the Sephardic workshops shaped by the kabbalists of Eretz Yisrael and the late Ottoman world, and it tells us where this sofer trained before any paper trail tells us where the scroll traveled.

The sofer worked from a proper tikkun and it shows on every yeriah we examined. Shema carries the enlarged ayin and dalet. The setumos of Vaeschanan and Ki Seitzei sit exactly where they belong. Az Yashir is laid in correct brickwork. Haazinu stands in the two column form with the six lines above it opening ואעידה, אחרי, הדרך, באחרית, להכעיסו, קהל, letter for letter with the masores, and the shira runs at the standard seventy lines [hard count pending]. In Ki Seitzei the scroll reads פצוע דכה with a heh, the Sephardic mesorah, consistent with everything else in the writing. The taggin are uniform and confident from Bereishis through the end. This is professional workshop quality, one school, front to back.

The community

The Sephardic Jewish Center of Canarsie served its neighborhood from 1965. Its founders were Ladino speaking Jews whose parents had come to Brooklyn in the early 1900s from Greece, from Turkey, and from the Balkan towns of the old Ottoman world, settling first in New Lots, Brownsville, and East New York before the community consolidated in Canarsie. For nearly half a century the congregation was led by Rabbi Myron Rakowitz, an Ashkenazi rabbi who served this Sephardic kehilla from 1969 until his petirah in April 2017. The shul stood at Flatlands Avenue and East 94th Street until 2012, then moved to smaller quarters nearby. As its members passed away or moved on, the congregation could no longer sustain a daily minyan. It buried its worn siddurim, davened its final Shabbatot as guests of a neighboring Ashkenazi congregation, and quietly closed a chapter that had run more than a century from Salonika to Brooklyn. The memorial plaques of the New Lots and Canarsie Sephardic centers are today in the care of the Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst.

The journey

When the congregation wound down, its sifrei Torah went out to whoever would take responsibility for them. This one reached the Chabad house in Marlboro, New Jersey [receiving details pending], where it waited out its years of wandering, fittingly, with chassidim whose own ksav follows the same Arizal whose letters this scroll carries. The physical record of that interim life is still on the sefer. The final blank yeriah wraps a loose transport rod secured with string ties and carries penciled stock marks, including the number 68 and what appears to be a lot notation. The working atzei chaim are plain American turned wood, a remount from whatever the scroll was originally sewn to. [Edge of the final yeriah to be examined for earlier giddin holes.]

The rededication

The scroll wears a recent mantle of red velvet, a burning bush worked in gold thread over blue, and beneath it, arced in gold, a dedication in Ladino, Judeo-Spanish written in Hebrew letters, the language of the community that owned it:

דונאדו … לה סיניורה דורה … אין מימוריה די סו מארידו יהושע מאיה

Donated by Señora Dora, in memory of her husband Yehoshua Maya. [Name spellings pending confirmation with the family.]

The family sponsored a rededication of the scroll around [year pending]. A century after the founding families landed in Brooklyn, and long after the shul itself closed its doors, the community’s language still speaks from the velvet.

The adoption

The scroll has now been adopted by a congregation in Passaic, New Jersey through the Museum of the Scroll adoption program. Sephardic ksav is kosher for every kehilla, and before the sefer returns to the amud it will receive a complete hagahah, with repair of the minor wear expected in a scroll of this age, cracked letters at roll points and reinforcement at the seams. This is the heart of the museum’s work. The scroll is not becoming an exhibit. It is going back to weekly leining, read aloud in a living minyan, which is the only retirement a sefer Torah should ever get.

Registry notes

Object: Sefer Torah, Sephardic (Vellish) script; ches of vav and zayin with chatoteres; tzadi of the Arizal; yudin with kotz of Rabbeinu Tam Date: twentieth century [decade pending] Origin: Ottoman sphere or Eretz Yisrael workshop, by hand and mesorah Klaf: white, surface finished; height ___ in; lines per column ___ [confirm 42] Mesorah markers: פצוע דכה with heh; Haazinu approx. 70 lines [count pending]; six pre-shira lines per masores; standard setumos Mounting: remounted; American turned-wood atzei chaim; end yeriah on loose rod with string ties and penciled stock marks (“68” and lot notation) Textiles: red velvet mantle with burning bush motif and Ladino memorial dedication, recent; earlier textiles not present with the scroll Provenance chain: Sephardic Jewish Center of Canarsie [possibly earlier via a predecessor congregation of New Lots or East New York] → Chabad, Marlboro NJ → adopting congregation, Passaic NJ, via Museum of the Scroll Condition: excellent legibility, stable ink; full hagahah scheduled prior to return to service