Chabad Center receives century-old Torah scroll as gift

• Singing and dancing marked the Chabad Center’s re-dedication of a donated Torah scroll.
• The scroll was given to the center by the Friedman family of Long Island.
• The Torah scroll is from Poland and dates back more than 100 years, according to family.

VESTAL – A century-old Torah scroll was welcomed into the Jewish center at Binghamton University on Sunday with a celebration that centered on tradition.

Members of the community sang and danced around a wedding canopy that carried the scroll during a procession that began at the Hayes Student Living apartments on Country Club Road and ended at the Rohr Chabad Center for Jewish Student Life on the outskirts of campus. Inside the center, women and men separated into two groups and continued to sing and dance before the ceremony culminated in a meal.

Rabbi Levi Slonim, director of programming and development at the Chabad Center, said the re-dedication of a Torah scroll is cause for celebration in Jewish communities around the world. The handwritten scrolls, which contain the five books of Moses, mark an “unbroken chain” stretching back to when the Torah was first given to the Jewish people 3,500 years ago, Slonim said.

“This is a continuation of our tradition that ... dates back thousands of years,” said Slonim, 30, of Vestal. “The Torah is ... the most essential, sacred text of the Jewish people. It’s been our source of information and our moral compass all throughout the years.”

The scroll at the center of Sunday’s celebration was donated to the Chabad Center by Avi and Paula Friedman and their family. The Friedmans, of Long Island, have two children who are alumni of Binghamton University — Stephanie Friedman, who graduated in 2011, and Harrison Yechiel Friedman, who graduated in 2013. Both were involved in Chabad during their time on campus.

Paula Friedman, 54, said the family inherited the Torah from her father-in-law, who recently passed away. The family decided to donate the scroll to the Chabad Center at Binghamton University when they realized that the center had only one.

“This is where our children had spent so many wonderful (Shabbatot) and holidays — we thought that (the center) deserved to have this Torah, to have young people reading it,” Friedman said. “A Torah is like a person, it should be shared with other people.”

The donated Torah scroll is from Poland and dates back more than 100 years, though its exact age is unknown, said Tova Friedman, Paula Friedman’s sister-in-law. Tova, 67, came from Manhattan for the dedication.

As dozens danced around in celebration while meal time crept closer, a rabbi at the center pointed out to the group another cause for celebration — while Sunday’s festivities would soon wind down, the center’s new Torah scroll would be part of many more to come.

Follow Megan Brockett on Twitter @PSBMegan.