A Reform congregation in Jerusalem will receive one of the two usable Torah scrolls out of the 50 given to the Ministry for Religious Affairs by the Westminster Synagogue Torah Scrolls Committee in London, it was reported here today.
The decision to allocate the Torah to the Reform congregation here followed a meeting between Religious Affairs Minister Zerach Warhaftig and Ralph Yablon, a member of the London Committee who had come to Israel to look into complaints by the Reform congregation that the Ministry was not honoring a condition of the Westminster Committee’s gift that some of the scrolls be distributed to Progressive congregations. The Ministry had earlier explained that all but two of the Torahs were unusable. The second usable Torah will be given to the Israel Army.
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