250-Year-Old British Torah Scroll Is Returned to Cornwall Community
Happy Return: Museum officials return 250 year old Torah scroll to the Jewish community of Cornwall in England. Image by falmouth packet
A Torah scroll that has spent more than 100 years in a British museum was returned to its Jewish community, the Falmouth Packet newpaper reported.
The Torah was one of four scrolls that had been kept in the Royal Cornwall Museum since the closing of the Falmouth Synagogue in 1892.
The 250-year-old Torah scroll was given during a ceremony to Kehillat Kernow, the Jewish community of Cornwall, on May 28. It was returned by the Duke of Gloucester on behalf of the museum, according to the BBC.
The scroll was first restored and repaired, and is believed to be the first kosher Torah scroll in the country to be given back by a museum.
In March 2013 the trustees of The Royal Institution of Cornwall, the charity which runs the museum, approved the return of one of the scrolls, following a formal request from heads of Kehillat Kernow and supported by the former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and with advice from the Museums Association ethics committee.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
