Customer Reviews

The Tattooed Torah

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Adequately explaining the horror of the Holocaust to children without giving them frightening nightmares is a difficult task. But The Tattooed Torah, by Marvell Ginsburg, illustrated by Martin Lemelman, succeeds admirably.

Little Torah, created for children to carry, has a secure and loving home in a synagogue in Brno, Czechoslovakia. When World War II starts, Little Torah is roughly stripped of its beautiful mantle, thrown into a truck, and transported, much like the human victims of Hitler's madness. In a warehouse with many others, Little Torah is marked with a number and stored on rough wooden shelving eerily reminiscent of concentration camp bunks. There the Torahs sit, even after the war, until they are rescued by a synagogue in England. Eventually, Little Torah finds a home in America, where once again, children can use it to worship and learn.

The author of The Tattooed Torah brings a light touch to material that could have easily slipped out of balance. For example, Little Torah is always treated like a living being, parallel with Jewish tradition. But although thoughts and feelings are attributed to Little Torah, the anthropomorphism is not allowed to become overly maudlin or cute. Hebrew vocabulary is introduced sufficiently to give flavor to the text, but not so much as to be overwhelming to readers, both child and adult.

The illustrations complement the text perfectly, but they also add new layers of meaning. In one drawing, Nazi soldiers loading Torahs on a truck are observed by a Jewish child hiding in the shadows. The child is clearly not a prisoner, but has taken some heroic initiative to escape and survive, providing a role model with which a child reading the story can readily identify.

There is one minor error: Torahs are always hand written, but an illustration of Little Torah's text clearly shows typeset-style letters. However, this is a very small flaw in a very beautiful book.

What a surprise to find this well written and beautifully illustrated book! As it turns out, I am a member of the Synagogue in London that housed the "lost" scrolls and have such fond memories of watching the scribe re-write the torahs that were damaged. I am thrilled to see the story finally in print. The story is articulate and addresses such a difficult topic to discuss with children. I recommend this to anyone to read with their children explaining that this is a true story with a happy ending. Then you can check with your local synagogue and see if you perhaps have a Westminster Scroll!!

Here's one Holocaust story that can be read to youngsters to prove that not everything from that dark period turned out badly.

The beautifully illustrated story tells of a small Torah, made lightweight especially for children in Czechoslovakia's second largest city (after Prague), Brno. However, when the Nazis seized all of Czechoslovakia in 1939, they carted off all Jewish "artifacts," including the Holy scrolls. Ultimately, Hitler planned on creating a museum about the people he hoped first to destroy.

This story, though, personifies the "experience" of Little Torah, the genuine children's scroll originally from Brno, which the Nazis numbered ("tatooed") much like they did their Jewish and other human victims.

Finally after World War II, the children's scroll was rescued and lovingly restored to usable condition, after which it is sent to the children of a U.S. synagogue.

What kids take away from this book is a lesson never to lose hope --- and never to forsake their love of Torah, the "living" testimony of Judaism, through thousands of years of Jewish history.