Cork Jewish community plans to rebuild with help of Massachusetts Torah
As part of efforts to sustain and rebuild the Jewish community, the Sefer Torah will be read in Cork City Hall during Heritage Week this August
A Torah scroll gifted to a Jewish community in Ireland by an American synagogue will be read from for the first time in August.
Since Cork Synagogue closed in 2016, the city’s Jewish community has been without a Torah. Earlier this year, however, Cork Jewish Community (CJC) was gifted a Torah scroll from a community in Massachusetts, USA.
The transfer of the scroll from Congregation Agudas Achim-Ezrath Israel in Malden, just six miles from Boston, to Cork Jewish Community took place in March, when the Torah was received by CJC Secretary Sophia Spiegel, and then transported back to Ireland.
CJC has since made a successful application to The National Heritage Council for funding for the building of an Aron Kodesh, a special storage unit for the Torah, as well as a reading table and a scroll stand.
In addition, Cork City Council Heritage funds have been secured by CJC to host an inaugural event that will take place during National Heritage Week in August 2023, and to video the transfer of the Torah, its arrival in Ireland, and the event for dissemination to the Cork Jewish diaspora and the wider Cork heritage community.
On Thursday 17th August 2023, Rabbi David Kudan will open the scroll and read from it for the first time since it came to Ireland, at an event in Cork City Hall, during Heritage Week.
Further details are available at available here.
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