In response to a request from the Jewish community here the Israel Government has presented a “Sefer Torah” which, like the majority of Montgomery’s Sephardic Jews, originated on the island of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese.
Mordecai Shalev, Second Secretary of the Israel Embassy in Washington, came to Montgomery to present the scroll on behalf of Israel. Rhodes was once the seat of a flourishing Jewish community, most of whose members left during the Mussolini regime, Some of the Torah scrolls were taken to Israel for safekeeping. When the Jews left Rhodes, a considerable number made their way to the United States and took up residence in Montgomery, capital of Alabama.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
