Holocaust survivor to donate Torah once hidden from Nazis

A man who survived the Holocaust in Poland is to donate a survivor Torah, just one of the nine holy scrolls once hidden from the Nazis that he has found, to the Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, New Jersey.

Edward Mosberg, an 80-year-old developer and philanthropist, has been collecting shoes, wires, spoons and other memorabilia associated with concentration camps for about 15 years.

The survivor Torah he is to donate on Tuesday is kosher - it has no textual flaws, blemishes on the scroll have been removed and a scribe read all of its letters out loud to make sure it was fit for ritual, according to Rabbi Pinchas Klein, head of Mount Freedom.

"In a few more years, there will be no more survivors," Mosberg, a survivor of the Krakow-Plaszow and Mauthausen concentration camps, told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Sunday's newspapers. "But in Mount Freedom they will be able to say, 'We have a survivor in the Torah."'

Mosberg said he has had to be patient as he looks for lost Torahs in the European market for lost or hidden Judaica. He and his wife, Cecile, have already donated holy scrolls to other New Jersey institutions, including schools and temples.

The members of Mount Freedom, an 83-year-old synagogue, see the gift as sacred. Klein said the temple has about 120 families, including many Holocaust survivors and members whose parents were in Europe before and during World War II.

"In that sense, what is so beautiful about this Torah scroll is that it joins a community that will cherish it and appreciate it and will continue to transmit the joy and repossession of the destiny of the Jewish people," Klein said.

The Torah will be prominently displayed in a special ark, Klein said.