The Shavuot Holiday, Celebrating the Giving of the Torah

Jews around the world commemorated the holiday
of Shavuot this week, the day on which tradition
says the Torah was given to the people of Israel
at Mt. Sinai.

Torah scrolls in the ark of the Istanbouli Synagogue in the Old City

of Jerusalem (circa 1930), "one of the oldest synagogues

in Jerusalem." The synagogues in the Old City were all

destroyed after the Jewish Quarter was captured in 1948.

(Library of Congress) 

The Torah -- also known as the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses --
has been the foundation of the Jewish faith for 3,000 years, the basis
for the monotheistic Christian and Islamic religions, and an inspiration
for spiritual, moral and ethical values.


A Yemenite Jewish scribe and his
father, Shlomo Washadi (c 1935)



Samaritan high priest with
his sons and Pentateuch
scroll (c 1911)

The Torah scrolls are handwritten with quills by God-fearing scribes
on the parchment made of the skins of kosher animals. One skipped
or illegible letter of the 304,805 letters of the Torah makes the scroll
invalid for reading in the synagogue service. A Torah damaged
beyond repair is buried.

Doctors Herbert and David Torrance of the Scottish Mission hospital i
n Tiberias and the photographers of the American Colony
Photographic Department took several portraits of Jews and their
Torah scrolls. They were also clearly fascinated by the scrolls and
practice of the Samaritans, an ancient offshoot of Judaism who are 

not considered Jewish today.


Jewish rabbi or Samaritan priest with scroll

The Dundee Medical School archives in Scotland contains many
anatomical pictures taken by the Torrances, but also fascinating
pictures of the Galilee Jewish community. We published one photo
captioned "Rabbi and Torah scroll." After we identified the picture
as a Samaritan, the archives corrected their caption to "a Samaritan
leader with his sect’s scroll."



A desecrated synagogue in Hebron
with Torahs strewn on the floor (1929)


The Library of Congress archives also include pictures of the
Hebron Jewish community after they were decimated in a
pogrom by Arab attackers. Among the photos are pictures
of a destroyed synagogue and its Torah scrolls.

Enlargement of the scrolls on the floor