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The Torah of

my Forefathers

Kally Kislowicz

y great-grandfather, Reuven Pittsburgh. It was lovingly restored, and it
Yonah Rubinovitz, was born lived in a small synagogue for many years.
in Lithuania in the 1860s. He
Mwas the rabbi of the shtetl in When I immigrated to Israel in 2016, I
thought about the Torah. I thought about
the town of Vasilishuk, and the father of
six sons and one daughter. how my great-grandfather loved the Land
of Israel so deeply that he wanted to die
In 1907, his two eldest sons immigrated to here, and how I was privileged to bring
America. They settled in a small town in my family to live here. My father agreed
Pennsylvania, where they were the only that it was finally time to bring the Torah
Jews in the area. In 1913, Rabbi Reuven to Israel, and earlier this year we had the to pray alongside this Torah, and the first
Yonah sent a Torah scroll to his sons in privilege of moving the Torah to its per- to do so in our homeland.
America to help them stay connected to manent home in my community in Efrat.
their Judaism. The rabbi himself came It brings me endless gratitude when this And I was so looking forward to celebrat-
to America with the rest of his family Torah is chosen to be used in our syn- ing with the Torah on Simchat Torah.
(including my grandfather) in 1921. agogue. Because it is so old, it is much On the night of Simchat Torah I teared up
When he was well into his 80s, Rabbi heavier than the newer models – the watching my sons take turns holding it.
Reuven Yonah decided to make Aliyah so person who does hagbah (raises the Torah I loved watching them dance, and I was
that he could die and be buried in the Holy in the air after it has been read) needs a excited that the Torah would be read from
Land. He passed away in 1959, at the age of spotter – so it is not taken out as regu- the following day.
96, and was buried in Jerusalem. larly as its more modern counterparts. But instead of celebrating with the Torahs
But I imagine the Torah doesn’t mind. on October 7th, they remained in their
Meanwhile, the rabbi’s sons stayed in I’ve developed an anthropomorphic rela-
rural Pennsylvania for decades. They tionship with this Torah, so I think of it, aron while we ran to the bomb shelter
as sirens wailed throughout the country.
were one of 45 Jewish families in their sitting in the cool dark of the aron kodesh
town of Vandergrift, and the Torah was (the Ark), speaking gently to the younger In the days that followed, I thought about
their prized possession. My grandfather Torahs, saying wise things and telling those who had died, I thought about the
read from the Torah every Rosh Hashanah stories that start with, “One time, back hostages, the soldiers, and the families
and Yom Kippur. He used it to teach my in the shtetl…” they had left behind to defend this land
father, my uncle, and all the Jewish boys that we love so desperately. And during
how to lein for their bar mitzvahs. I thought of the Torah on Yom HaAtzmaut many sleepless hours, I thought about the
(Israel Independence Day), thrilled that Torah.
Over time, the Jews from the town moved for the first time in its long life it was
on. My grandfather moved his family to spending this day in the place where I wanted to tell the Torah that I was sorry
the nearby city of Pittsburgh, where it miraculous history was made. I was that it had journeyed so far from the Cos-
would be more likely that his sons would highly aware of its presence in my syna- sacks only to find itself threatened and
meet and marry Jewish women. In the gogue on Yom Kippur, awed and humbled terrorized by Hamas in its new home.
1980s, when the last Jews left Vander- by the fact that my children and I are the I wanted to say that it was okay to be
grift, my father brought the Torah to fourth and fifth generations of my family afraid, because the road and the obstacles

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