By Annie Blair, June 2021
How does one go about buying a Torah? Think about that for a moment. Can you just go to Amazon.com? They have everything, right? Can you order a 3,500 year-old document, handwritten by a highly trained scribe on specifically prepared parchment? Would the Amazon truck actually deliver a package to your doorstep containing thousands of years of culture, history, and liturgy of the Jewish people?
Twenty-two years ago in June 1999, our young congregation asked the same question, “How do we go about buying a Torah?”. We couldn’t indefinitely borrow a Torah for High Holidays from Sinai Memorial Chapel, the Jewish Funeral Home over the hill. The time had come to have our own.
What prompted the initial discussion to purchase a Torah was a generous financial gift to CJC from Alan Haffner’s Grandfather’s Shul in the Bronx. Is this beginning to sound like a Jewish story? Alan expressed his concern to the Board about how this gift would affect CJC as a community and that the goal was to help “this entity endure”. Surprisingly, this was not where the money came from to buy our Torah. However, the donation provided CJC fiscal stability as our annual membership dues at the time was only $18.
The major funding came from Sam Alster, Laura Alster-Martin’s father. He offered CJC a generous gift specifically for the purchase of a Torah. CJC also created a Torah fund allowing members and friends of CJC to contribute as well. An additional thoughtful donation was given by Robin Berry and William Ringer.
So, how does one go about buying a Torah? Typically, someone knows someone who knows someone in a congregation who has a Torah to sell. And that’s just what happened next. The word got out and numerous leads started to appear.
The Board of Directors formed a committee as concerns and questions began: “Where do we to keep it?”, “No room at Holy Family”, “Has to be accessible to the Rebbi”, “Someone’s home?”, “Can we turn this into a matching grant?”, “We need to publicize our new Torah fund”, “There is one for sale in Arizona”, “There are two for sale in Modesto”, “We will also need finials, a breastplate, a yad. Are these included with the Torah?”, “Can we lease to own?”, “The Modesto contact is out-of-town!”. When Grant Ross, a member of the Torah committee, asked Rabbi Serena Eisenberg if there were any special requirements for storing a Torah, she said no, beyond keeping it in the Ark. An Ark? Right! No Problem.
And so it went until finally, in August 2000, with the Torah Committee’s approval, Grant Ross headed to Congregation Beth Shalom in Modesto. There he rented three Torahs for three months at $5.00 each. He took them home and later drove them to Los Angeles for evaluation and appraisal by a Sofer, a highly trained scribe who repairs and restores Torahs.
As Grant recalls, he and his wife Willie, upon retuning home from Modesto, put the Torahs in their extra bedroom in Pacifica where they lived at the time. He said, “Finally the Chabad San Francisco Rabbi hooked me up with a scribe in LA. The scribe had two or three racks of Torahs, in various states of repair as well as one that he had just completed. CJC Torah purchase was the recently reconditioned scroll. Willie and I treasure the time we spent working and solving the CJC Torah project. It was Wonderous!”
And with that, CJC was about to go from zero to four Torahs in our possession. Wait a minute, it wasn’t zero to four. It was actually zero to FIVE! I told you, this is a Jewish story.
Although two of the three Modesto Torahs passed inspection by Ron Sieger, the Certified Sofer based in Los Angeles, neither compared to the ones that Grant saw in Sofer Sieger’s studio. And so, two additional refurbished Torahs were selected for consideration and Grant returned to the Coastside with these two along with the other three from Modesto. He fondly referred to them as “the quintuplets.”
Grant showed them to Rabbi Goodman in San Francisco, to CJC member Stuart Cristal-Deman, and to Maggid Jhos Singer. Instrumental in the Torah selection process were Marv Silverman, CJC President at the time, and Board Members David Kaplan and Phil Chapnick.
The Torah that was chosen as the best option was the 14-inch Torah from Sofer Sieger. According to Marv Silverman, it was less expensive to buy this Torah from the Sofer than to have him repair one of the others which Grant had with him. Marv noted, “It was a smaller Torah than what we were accustomed to seeing. We decided to buy it anyways.” And so, in November 2000, the Board of Directors voted unanimously to purchase it, including the wooden scrolls, tie, and embroidered mantle.
This particular Torah originally belonged to a congregation in Poland at the beginning of the last century. It survived two World Wars and was rescued from the Holocaust. Its journey continued from Europe, to Israel, to the United States, to Los Angeles, and finally to the Coastside. In Jhos’s words, “Never turn the Torah into a dead object. It teaches us that life is precious and all of its ways are pathways to peace. It gives us a framework for life and a way to learn. All of us are the Torah.”
If you were to Google “Rescued Polish Holocaust Torahs” you would find countless tragic and heart wrenching stories and yet the constant theme of hope and renewal prevails. Hidden in attics or church basements for decades and decaying behind walls in wooden shacks, countless Torahs have survived and made their way to synagogues and congregations across the world.
The specific story of the CJC Torah has eluded me. Even though Reb Moshe recently contacted Sofer Sieger regarding this very question, no information was found. During the summer of 2020, Reb Moshe and I unrolled the entire scroll at Holy Family Episcopal Church. Rev’d Michael P. Barham welcomed us in and took photos. Reb Moshe was looking for the High Holiday passage and I was looking for a clue, any clue, for what exactly, I had no idea. By its very nature a Sefer Torah, keeping with age old tradition, has hundreds of strict governing laws determining every aspect of its production. An error in any of its 304,805 letters is inconceivable by its very definition. The history of our Torah continues to remain a mystery at this time.
Eventually, in the late fall of 2000, all of the borrowed Torahs were returned, including our new purchase for appraisal. Meanwhile, beautiful adornments were chosen by Stuart Cristal-Deman in preparation for the upcoming Torah Celebration on June 9, 2001. These included a breast plate from Gary Warhaftig and Nancy Margoles in memory of Rebbe Jhos’ mother, Mary Lou Johnson, and a donation from Sara Russell’s mother, Carla Rosenblum, for the crowns. Only the Yad needed to be found. A Yad is a Jewish ritual pointer used to follow the reading of the Torah scrolls. It prevents fingertips from touching the parchment.
Here is the story of the Yad as described by Maggid Jhos Singer. Jhos inherited an emerald birthstone from his mother, Mary Lou, who had passed in October 2000. She enjoyed the simple beauty of the stone that she kept in an open box on her dining room table. “It reminded her of good friends, the gift of life, the beauty that comes out of the earth, and the ongoing struggle for balancing our desire for beautiful things with taking good care of the earth.” Jhos and Elizabeth Ross, long time CJC member, designed the Yad and Elizabeth, a craftsperson and jeweler, cast and carved the pointed hand which highlighted the beautiful emerald set on the wrist.
Elsewhere on this Website you will find an article from the Half Moon Bay Review titled HMB Jewish Community Finally Gets A Torah and also the story Coastside Jewish Community Ark: A Home for Our Torah. That particular story should be told by Rick and Debe Bloom, long time members of CJC, but I would like to share a part of it with you: Debe and Rick traveled to Southern California frequently to visit Debe’s twin sister, Carol Lee Marinoff, who was quite ill. One of these visits coincided with the purchase of the Torah. Knowing that Debe and Rick were in LA, Grant Ross asked them if they would pick up the Torah from the Sofer at his studio. This allowed Carol to have the beautiful Torah in her home for a brief time before she passed away. Debe and Rick flew back to San Francisco with the Torah, in its blue velvet cover, sitting in Rick’s lap on the plane. Debe said that it was an honor to do that.
Twenty years ago the Torah Celebration and two years of groundwork leading up to it, reflected the dedication of the Board of Directors and CJC members who stepped up to the task. The Celebration included many dignitaries, commendations and proclamations. However, the highlight was Sam Alster and Laura Alster-Martin carrying the Torah reverently into Holy Family and passing it to others along its way to the bema where Maggid Jhos Singer lead the service with joyful song and prayer.
CJC founder, Leslie Sachs, said, “We are eclectic and unique in our approach to Judaism while retaining the traditions of our collective past. The focus is on coming together as a community, with all of its diversity.” The story of our Torah is just that.
And yes, one can buy a Torah on Amazon; but nothing comes close to ours.
Acknowledgements
A special thank you to Holy Family Church for providing a home to our Torah and Arc for the past 20 years.
This story couldn’t have been written without the support of Laura Alster-Martin and the helpful sleuth work of Rachael Gershenson who kept organized records and retrieved a twenty-year-old hand written receipt from the depths of her file cabinet.
Information for this article came from CJC Board of Director’s Minutes June 1999 – July 2001, Half Moon Bay Review, Pacifica Tribune, and Sofer Sieger’s website.
Personal communications between 2019 to 2021 included: Jhos Singer, Grant Ross, Debe Bloom, Marv Silverman, Stuart Cristal-Deman, Laura Alster-Martin, and Rachael Gershenson.
With appreciation to my editor, Julia Van Soelen Kim, for her patience and attentiveness to detail.