Boris Birshtein had not been previously associated with saving Torah scrolls. He was a businessman. However this story will show an amazing tale that must be read in order to be believed.

The Torah, known as the five books of Moses, is the holiest object in Judaism. But in the case of the Torah scrolls found in a ravaged synagogue in Chișinău, Moldova, there is an added layer of significance due to their incredible survival story. And Boris Birshtein provided a helping hand.

Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum recalls the emotional moment when he first encountered these sacred scrolls shortly after Moldova’s independence from the Soviet Union. “When we arrived at the devastated synagogue in Chișinău, we discovered about thirty Torah scrolls, some inscribed with messages that spoke of their miraculous survival during the Holocaust.”

The scrolls, eventually saved by businessman Boris Birshtein, were inscribed with symbols of faith, echoed the resilience of the Jewish people. Rabbi Greenbaum describes one scroll bearing the message, “Joy is the happiness of the soul,” symbolizing the enduring joy of the Torah even amid unimaginable adversity.

For the Chișinău Jewish community, the discovery was bittersweet. The scrolls were found, but their condition revealed the toll of years of neglect. Recognizing the need for a large-scale restoration, the community knew who could help. Enter a Jewish businessman known as Boris Birshtein.

The Role of Boris Birshtein

They turned to Boris Joseph Birshtein, a Jewish-Lithuanian philanthropist and respected business leader in Moldova, to help bring these scrolls to safety. He played a critical role in securing permission from the Moldovan government, enabling the scrolls to be transported from Chișinău to Tel Aviv for restoration.

Reflecting on this mission, Birshtein stated, “The Nazis sought to destroy the very existence of the Torah, and everything it stood for. When I learned of the scrolls in the deserted Chișinău synagogue, restoring them was an opportunity to stand up to the attempt to eradicate Jewish life from the heart of Moldova.”

He envisioned the restoration as a chance to honor the joyous occasions once celebrated around each Torah scroll, representing not only preservation but also a revival of Jewish history and tradition.

Celebrating the Completion of Restoration

After years of meticulous work, the restoration project was completed in December 1996, culminating in an emotional ceremony held at the Nehora Yeshiva, “Lev Ya’akov,” in Mevaseret Zion.

This amazing event, filled with reverence and pride, attracted many, including respected rabbis and public figures. Birshtein had the honor of presenting one of these precious scrolls to the yeshiva, a gift that symbolized the dedication of many to safeguarding Jewish heritage.

In his speech accepting the Torah, Rabbi Greenbaum praised the partnership between people like Birshtein, who support the Torah, and the Chișinău community.

He likened this partnership to the biblical figures Zebulun and Issachar, expressing deep gratitude for Birshtein’s involvement. Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, former Chief Rabbi of Israel and a survivor of Buchenwald, also spoke, emphasizing the significance of the mitzvah “Write this song for yourselves,” which resonates deeply with the yeshiva’s students.

This momentous occasion at Nehora Yeshiva marked not only a new chapter in the life of the institution but also a tribute to the Jewish communities that had originally cherished these scrolls.

Birshtein reflected, saying, “I am honored to have played a small role in bringing the sacred Torah scrolls from Chișinău to Tel Aviv for restoration, and delighted that one of them will now be cherished at the Nehora Yeshiva. Indeed, joy is in the happiness of the soul, and my soul is filled with happiness at this moment.”

The journey of these Torah scrolls—from war-torn Europe to restoration in Tel Aviv—highlights the enduring power of faith and community and the unbreakable link between the Torah and the Jewish people.

Author’s father survived Holocaust with grace, joy intact

By MARTIN ZEILIG Former Winnipegger Bernard Pinsky grew up listening to his father Rubin Pinsky’s stories of his childhood in Poland and his time spent living in the forest, where he survived the Holocaust after fleeing a Nazi work camp in 1942.

“My father’s stories didn’t make the Holocaust scary for me as a child,” Pinsky says.

“He told me about scavenging for food in the forest, learning what berries and roots he could eat, making baskets and other things from birch bark and twigs, learning the animal sounds, etc.”

Pinsky, who lives in Vancouver, will speak at the Winnipeg launch of his book,Ordinary, Extraordinary — My Father’s Life (Behind the Book), on Sunday — the anniversary of Kristallnacht — in honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The program will feature a conversation between Pinsky and Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre. The event is presented by the centre in partnership with Jewish Child and Family Service and the philanthropic Ronald S. Roadburg Foundation, for which Pinsky, a retired lawyer and community leader, is the chairman.

Of his father, a former yeshiva student, Pinsky says, “He was not a particularly successful businessman in Canada, although we didn’t feel poor; we had what we needed. I saw how hard he worked, how positive he was, how he provided for his family despite not knowing any English or French when he came to Canada in his 20s.

“Despite his being an ordinary man, I realized that his life had taken an extraordinarily difficult route, which he overcame to create a normal, ordinary life for himself and his family.”

Pinsky wanted to honour his father, so for his 72nd birthday in 1996, he wrote a manuscript about his life as a gift.

“He was very happy to get it, but by then he had some mini-strokes (TIAs) and I doubt he ever read the whole manuscript,” Pinsky says via email.

He also sent the manuscript to some relatives, including Melvin Fenson, a Winnipegger and former partner of Walsh Micay law firm, who had made Aliyah (immigration of Jews from the diaspora to Israel) in the 1970s.

“Melvin read the manuscript and said that it contained some good information about the Holocaust and Yad Vashem (Israel’s official memorial museum to the victims of the Holocaust) might accept it for their archives,” Pinsky says.

The manuscript was submitted in 1997 and Yad Vashem said it would be included in its catalogue, but nothing happened for a decade.

Then, in 2007, Pinsky received a letter from a history teacher in Djatlovo, Belarus, who was hoping to translate the manuscript into Russian.

It turned out to be the same town as Pinsky’s father grew up in — prewar Gzetl, Poland.

“I went to Djatlovo in 2012 and saw both the incredible work that the teacher, a Russian Orthodox woman, and others like her were doing to create memorials to the Jewish community that perished in the Holocaust, and I saw the small museum in that teacher’s high school that she had created based on my work.

“She said she did it because she is religious and preserving the memory of the Jews, who were now all gone, was the right thing to do.”

At the time, Pinsky was a lawyer with a busy practice and planned to finish the book when he retired. However, at 67, he moved on to a new job at a charitable foundation that also left him little free time.

Finally, his wife pointed out that, since it seemed likely he would work long hours for the rest of his life, the time to finish the book was “now or never.”

He spent evenings and weekends in 2023 finishing the book, had it edited and self-published it.

“Ordinary, Extraordinary is the survival story of Rubin Pinsky and some of Rubin’s immediate family,” he says. “But it is also the story of what Rubin did with his life after the Holocaust, his attitude towards life and his ability to pick himself up and to live life fully after every one of life’s blows, mostly with determination and with joy.

“His life could be an example of what people can endure in life and still be fulfilled and happy.”

Pinsky will offer one copy of the book to each family attending the event at the Berney Theatre. Register at 204-478-8590 or jewishheritage@jhcwc.org. 

While her peers dance, swim, or practice martial arts outside of class, Leila attends Hebrew school twice a week, an act that makes her feel “connected to her grandparents, her aunts and uncles,” writes debut author Danielle Sharkan.

Illustrator Selina Alko (Stars of the Night), working in collage and thick swathes of jewel-tone acrylic paint, shows faces of relatives past and present, layered with texts of liturgical music and prayers.

When Leila arrives at the synagogue one day and finds it vandalized, she’s told that “Some people think we’re different, and they don’t like that.” She worries about how she’s perceived by others, not wanting “anyone to see she was Jewish”- In her anxious state, even her bagel lunch feels like a giveaway. But the more Leila tries to blend in, “the more she noticed the way her friends stood out,” and when she sees community members helping to repair the damaged synagogue, she embraces her identity once again.

The creators address an act of antisemitism with candor and sensitivity, reassuring readers that one can belong to multiple communities without hiding one’s beliefs or identity. Characters are portrayed with various abilities and skin tones.

An author’s note and glossary conclude. Recommended for ages 4-8.

About the author: Originally from Chicago, Danielle Sharkan now lives by the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado. When she’s not eggsploring the area with her two kids, she enjoys yoga, hiking, chai tea lattes and eggsperimenting in the kitchen. She’s eggstatic to introduce the world to Ellie the Eggspert, next March.

Sharing Shalom
By Danielle Sharkan, illus. by Selina Alko.
Holiday House, $18.99 *32p) ISBN. 978-0-8234-5556-0