Provenance

The Salonika Torah and Haftarah are owned by Ken and Barbara Larson from Bonita Springs, Florida, USA. They are loaned to God’s Ancient Library, a Florida based 501(c)(3). The scrolls were acquired by the Larsons in 2017 from a private collection in Israel. The collection works in close consultation with staff from the National Library in Israel and with the Israel Antiquities Authority. The scrolls were exported in full compliance with Israeli law governing the sale and export of such items.

Both scrolls are pasul (not fit for liturgical use). Given the disrepair of the scrolls when originally acquired, it indicates that they had fallen into disuse long before the Nazi devastation of the Salonika Jews. The Saloniki Jewish survivors of the Holocaust returned to the shambles in their city and gathered what remained of their lives, ruined synagogues and whatever they could find in genizahs (a repository in synagogues and cemeteries for pasul scrolls and religious writings) and left for Israel and other countries to start new lives. Scrolls were acquired by the Israeli government, large synagogues and private collectors. These two scrolls eventually found their way to the private collection in Israel in 2010. The two scrolls were not acquired as a set but the orthography on the two scrolls is similar. In any event, the scrolls preserve the heart of the liturgy for Jews in the vibrant center of Salonika and are a living vestige of the spiritual life of that community.