This is a Torah belt from Galicia that was used on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The belt was created in the eighteenth or nineteenth century and is currently in the Lviv Museum of Ethnography and Crafts in Western Ukraine. The belt is made from white fabric and is embroidered with a verse from the Torah and pictures of flowers and deer. It is designed to secure the Torah scroll so that it does not open when taken out of the ark and brought to the table to be read. Torah belts are made of a wide, soft material that will not damage the Torah scroll. The verse from Leviticus (16:30), “For on this day atonement shall be made for you...you shall be clean before the Lord,” discusses the holiday of Yom Kippur. Not all of the words of the verse are visible, and it is assumed that the rest of the verse is embroidered on the section of the belt that is laying face down in the photograph. White, a colour representing purity, is associated Yom Kippur, and it is common to adorn the synagogue with a white parochet (ark curtain) and to dress the Torah scrolls in white covers. In many communities it is customary to wear white on Yom Kippur.
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Yom Kippur – Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the Jewish year. The date of Yom Kippur is 10 Tishrei, and it marks the end of the ten-day period beginning with Rosh Hashanah which is called the High Holy Days and the Ten Days of Repentance. According to tradition, God evaluates each person’s life and writes their name in either the Book of Life or the Book of Death during the Ten Days of Repentance; on Yom Kippur, the books are sealed. While reflection and prayer take place throughout the ten days, Yom Kippur is the most solemn day, and it is traditional to pray, fast, and refrain from bathing and wearing leather shoes. It is also traditional to give tzedakah (charity), during this time period. Another unusual custom is wearing a tallit for all of the prayers, when it is usually only worn during the day, and in some communities men wear a special white robe named a kittel. There are five services on Yom Kippur, beginning with the Kol Nidrei prayer and the Maariv service in the evening. Prayers are resumed the following day with Shacharit (morning service) and the Musaf (additional service) which includes a description of the special ceremonies that took place in the Temple on Yom Kippur. Later in the day is the Mincha service, during which the Book of Jonah is read, and the day comes to close with the Neilah service, considered to be the final opportunity to ask God to be written in the Book of Life, which ends with the congregation saying the Shema and the blowing of the shofar.
Torah Scroll – A Torah scroll (sefer Torah) is a handwritten copy of the first five books of the Bible. A sofer (scribe) writes a sefer Torah using specially made black ink, a quill, and parchment. The text of the Torah is written in Hebrew letters without vowels and notes (trope). The parchment is attached to two wooden poles (etz hayim) on which it is rolled. Honouring and protecting the Torah scroll is very important, and many objects have been designed to protect and decorate it, such as the cover (mantle), belt, crown, pointer, and breastplate. Traditions differ as to the outer casing for the Torah. Sephardi Torah scrolls are usually stored in a round, wooden (or metal) casing, while Ashkenazi Torahs are covered in a fabric mantle. The Torah is stored in the Aron Kodesh (ark) which is usually placed on the wall facing the direction of Jerusalem. The Torah is read publically on Mondays, Thursdays, Shabbat, and holidays.
Jewish Community of Ukraine – Jews first arrived in Ukraine in the ninth century seeking refuge from Byzantium, Persia, and Mesopotamia. Jews were allowed to practice Judaism openly and prospered during this period. In the 1500s, a large influx of Jews from Western Europe arrived in Ukraine, which became an important centre of Jewish life. However, in the ensuing periods, anti-Semitic sentiment grew in Ukraine, and the Cossack uprising of 1648 resulted in the murder of over 20,000 Jews and the departure of many others to more tolerant countries. At the end of the eighteenth century, Ukraine was made a part of the Russian Pale of Settlement. Although this was a difficult period for Ukrainian Jews, new ideas and organisations developed such as Hasidism, the Haskalah (the Jewish enlightenment), and Zionism. As a result of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Pale of Settlement was dissolved and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian Jews moved to other parts of the Soviet Union. Under communism, Jewish and Zionist activity moved underground as the party did not allow such activity. During the Holocaust, it is believed that a million Jews were killed in Ukraine, including those killed in a large massacre at Babi Yar and others murdered by the Einsatzgruppen. The Germans were joined by Ukrainian collaborators, and according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, “Ukraine has, to the best of our knowledge, never conducted a single investigation of a local Nazi war criminal, let alone prosecuted a Holocaust perpetrator.” After the war, Jews who returned to their former homes in Ukraine were met with hostility by the local population. In the 1980s and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many Ukrainian Jews emigrated to Israel and other countries. Currently, Ukrainian Jewish life is being rebuilt, with various Jewish denominations active. Today, the Jewish community of Ukraine is the fourth largest Jewish community in Europe and the eleventh in the world, with an estimated population of up to 140,000 people.
Jewish Community of Lvov – Lvov, also known as Lviv and Lemberg, is situated today in Western Ukraine, but it was historically part of Eastern Galicia, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire. The first Jews arrived in Lvov in 1256, where they played an important role in trade. The Jews of Lvov lived in two separate Jewish quarters – one within the city walls and another on the outskirts. The Jewish community of Lvov was among the main communities of Galicia represented in the Council of Four Lands – the central body of Jewish Authority in Poland. As with other Jewish communities in Poland, the Jews of Lvov suffered from the Cossack pogroms of 1648. The city was, later, strongly effected by Shabtai Zvi and the false messiah Jacob Frank in the eighteenth century. Lvov was an important rabbinical city, and many important rabbis served the Lvov community. Chasidism became popular in the city towards the end of the eighteenth century, and the community suffered clashes between the Chasidim and their opponents, the Misnagdim. In the nineteenth century the Enlightenment (Haskala) and Reform movements arrived in Lvov, causing many disputes with the ultra-Orthodox population of the city. Lvov also became a centre for Zionism and for Jewish culture, hosting a famous Yiddish theatre. Assimilated intellectual Jews, who identified with German culture, also founded various social movements around this time. During World War I, many Jewish refugees arrived in Lvov, and by the outbreak of World War II, more than 100,000 Jews lived in Lvov, comprising a third of the city’s population. At the beginning of the war, the Soviets annexed the city together with the rest of Eastern Galicia. When the German Army invaded the USSR, Lvov was one of the first cities to be conquered and more than 6,000 Jews were murdered in a massacre carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators. In November 1941 a ghetto was created in Lvov, and in the ensuing years close to 80,000 Jews were deported to Belsec, Sobibor, and Auschwitz. Tens of thousands of others died in the terrible conditions in the ghetto or in the Janowska work camp on the outskirts of Lvov. In July 1944, Lvov was freed by the Red Army, but only 3,400 Jews survived. In the following years, the Jews of Lvov lived under communist rule. In 1970, close to 30,000 Jews were living in the city, but the population shrank due to emigration. Today, the Jewish population is estimated at 2,000, and it has a few Jewish institutions.
