Torah Scrolls JFC has the good fortune of owning three Torah scrolls, each from a different part of the world where Jews have been persecuted. The Brno scroll, written in 1838, was discovered some time after the end of World War II along with others stolen from the desecrated synagogues of Czechoslovakia by the Nazis. Found in a jumbled heap of Jewish artifacts in a damp, filthy cellar of the main Prague synagogue, they were acquired by the Westminster Synagogue in England where they were numbered, examined, classified and repaired. When we acquired the Brno scroll in 1981, it was with the conviction that we keep the memory of this extinguished community alive through our continuing use of their scroll. The scroll's beautiful tapestry cover is designed by Joan Schwartz and depicts the scroll's rebirth amid our congregation. The Sephardic (eastern Judaic) scroll, written somewhere in Jerusalem in 1964 and housed in a beautifully decorated casing rather than a mantle, was purchased by the congregation in support of Syrian Jewry. In 1999, Ed and Renee Mendell donated the third Torah, a scroll they acquired in Israel years before from a Russian immigrant who had smuggled it out wrapped in a Russian prison uniform. The half-size Torah was a perfect fit for the unusually small breastplate and finials shown to them by an Israeli silversmith. They purchased these and brought them to South Salem. Affectionately called the "Tiny Torah," it is over 250 years old and has exquisite though faint script.