With the support of UJR-AmLat, the Adat Israel community in Guatemala City received a new Sefer Torah. Originally written around 1850 in Podivín, in today’s Czech Republic, scroll no. 1505 has gone through a long history.
Part of the Memorial Scrolls Trust collection, this and more than 1,500 Torah scrolls from various communities in former Czechoslovakia were gathered at the Jewish Museum of Prague by order of the Nazis at the start of the Shoah. Working under unimaginable conditions, the museum’s staff catalogued the sifrei Torah and more than 250,000 other Jewish items, recording the history and origin of each piece.
During and after the Shoah, with the destruction of much of the country’s Jewish community, these items were stored in an old synagogue in Prague. In the 1950s, the communist regime attempted to sell the collection to obtain foreign currency; the first offer, to Israel, was declined by Minister Zerach Wahrhaftig, one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence.
Eventually, the Czechoslovak government reached philanthropist Ralph Yablon, who purchased the collection under the condition that it could never be resold. In 1964, 1,564 Torah scrolls were transported by truck to Westminster Synagogue in London, where the Trust was established to restore the scrolls and assign them to new homes – which has happened with more than 1,400 scrolls since then.
Scroll 1505 has an unusual story. Between 1977 and 1995, it served the Reform Mill Hill synagogue in London; after that community closed, it was used at Temple Sholom in southeastern Australia. During an audit in the early 2000s, it was discovered that the scroll had been lost. Last year, a person in Indianapolis (USA) contacted the Trust claiming to have two Czech scrolls – one of which turned out to be scroll 1505. It was restored and made kosher again for ritual use.
Two American sisters, Sharon Freed and Lori Garg, contacted the Trust last year seeking to honor their father, Frederic J. Freed z”l, with the donation of a Sefer Torah – a long-standing wish of the late patriarch. With the support of Andrew Keene, a Trust leader, and the mediation of UJR-AmLat, the sisters found the perfect community to receive scroll 1505.
A small community of about 40 people – and the only non-Orthodox community in the country – Adat Israel is a symbol of resilience and love for Judaism. On Shabbat Ki Tetse (September 4–5, 2025), the synagogue welcomed very special guests to celebrate the new scroll. Along with the Freed sisters, Andrew Keene, and UJR’s executive director David Britva Beraha, the event was attended by Israel’s Ambassador to Guatemala Alon Lavi, the executive director of Guatemala’s Hebrew Center Ilan López, and Eryn Sarkin, RIG Fellow of the Joint Distribution Committee.
The presence of Ambassador Alon Lavi and the head of the Orthodox community, Ilan López, marks what we hope will be another step toward a constructive and lasting relationship between the Reform synagogue and other Jewish institutions in Guatemala.
The Kabbalat Shabbat and Shacharit Shabbat services, led by rabbinical student Rebeca Orantes and leaders Karla Cifuentes and Adrian Dardón, featured hakafot with the new scroll, and the Torah reading was already held from scroll 1505.
Text written by David Britva Beraha – Executive Director
