Emerson shul welcomes Holocaust Torah

Rabbi Debra Orenstein is pictured with the Torah. (Courtesy CBI)

Debra Orenstein, the rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Emerson, stands with a special 19th century Torah scroll, above, which was buried in a graveyard near a synagogue in an effort to protect it from the Nazis on the night before Kristallnacht. After the war ended the scroll was exhumed — still dressed in its mantel — brought to the United States, and restored. Eventually it found a home in the Hillcrest Jewish Center, which was headed by Rabbi Orenstein’s grandfather, Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz.

This year, the Torah was central in B’nai Israel’s Yom HaShoah program.

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