LAKEVIEW — Eighth graders who recently graduated from the Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Lakeview aren’t just leaving behind teachers and a building holding years of memories and experiences.

The school is also the new home of a surviving piece of the Holocaust, with students taking the lead in safeguarding part of their history and passing it on to younger students.

Bernard Zell now houses Survivor 1089, a Torah that survived the Holocaust and traces back to Rychnov, a small town in then-Czechoslovakia. 

The Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust at the Westminster Synagogue in London, which safeguards other Survivor Torahs, sent Survivor 1089 to Bernard Zell in November. Why?

Eighth graders spent much of the school year learning about the Holocaust and the history of Survivor Torahs. They designed a specialized cabinet and accompanying religious accessories to protect Survivor 1089 for the foreseeable future. 

Classmates, teachers and parents marked the occasion with a dedication ceremony at the end of the school year.

“The Torah is kind of for the entire community, and this kind of showed that it’s not just for one grade, or one person, one teacher — it’s for all of us,” said Sam Schwartz, a graduating eighth-grader.

Bernard Zell’s incoming eighth-grade class will be Survivor 1089’s next set of guardians when they start school in the fall.

“We’re passing on this Torah. We were the guardians of it this year and now we’re passing it on to the [next] generations,” said Jade Labkon, another graduating eighth-grader.

The Life of Survivor 1089

Survivor 1089 was given a number like many Torahs not destroyed during the Holocaust. It was one of 1,564 Czech Torahs under the care of the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust, according to the Bernard Zell website. 

Eric Estorick, an art dealer, was given Survivor 1089 and other Survivor Torahs by the Czech government, Bernard Zell history teacher Jeff Ellison said. At the time, the government wanted to know if Estorick was interested in purchasing them and other scrolls, according to the Memorial Scroll Trusts website.

Estorick had them repaired and authenticated, Ellison said. He then enlisted a client, Ralph Yablon, to pay the Czech government to have them taken to the Westminster Synagogue in London in 1964, according to the Memorial Scroll Trusts website.

While it isn’t clear why or how it survived, Survivor 1089 is now one of a handful of Survivor Torahs in the Chicago area, Ellison said. It will remain on permanent loan to Bernard Zell, according to the school’s website. 

“The idea is that in the future, it will be taken to classrooms, even to the young children, and they’ll be able to take the Torah out and they’ll be able to read from this Torah that dates back to about the 1850s or so,” Ellison said.