Hachnasat Torah

Story of our Torah

As told by Rabbi Philip Schroit z”l, founding and longtime rabbi of B'nai David-Judea, to Rabbi David Rue

As the Lebanese civil war was raging in the mid to late 1970's, most of the Jews in Lebanon managed to leave, but 54 were stuck and could not get out.  For some reason the few remaining Jews in Lebanon contacted Rabbi Schroit to ask for help.  In those days when a tour group passed border control, the tour leader held everyone's passports and they were counted and that number of people were let through, they did not check passport to person.  So Rabbi Schroit, in less then two weeks, organized a shul tour to Israel with a two day stop in Cyprus to look at ancient ruins and the Jewish connection to Cyprus.   The tour group arrived one evening and the next morning early Rabbi Schroit left the group with the guide and  flew to Beirut, with the 54 passports of the group.  In the Beirut airport, Rabbi Schroit met the 54 remaining members of the Lebanese Jewish community and used the groups passports to get them through passport control.  Rabbi Schroit told me the entire time he was in Lebanon he could her the war raging outside the airport.  (Also because of the Civil War often the Airport was closed with no warning.)  They had to wait many hours for the flight to Cyprus. And hearing the war rage outside.  Rabbi Schroit told me he was terrified the entire time.  But he had learned in the Mir in Poland before WW2 and he knew hundreds of people that had been killed in the Holocaust.  He could not stand by and let more Jews die if he could do something about it.  They made the flight back to Cyprus, and the Israeli embassy was waiting to arrange their Aliya to Israel.  (Rabbi Schroit had been in contact with the Jewish Agency in advance so they would be ready to help the refugees in Cyprus.)  These last Lebanese Jews had brought with them the oldest most important Sefer Torah that they had and gave it to Rabbi Schroit as a Thank You gift for saving them.   

Rabbi Schroit never let the group know why he had not been with them in Cyprus.  When he told me this history, he asked that I not tell the story as there were still many of those people in the Shul, and they would be very upset with him for risking his life, for taking their passports etc.  When I heard this it was only about 15 years after the events, but now over forty years have passed, the Rabbi has gone to his reward, I do not know how many if any of that group are still around, the story can be told.   

When I was the associate Rabbi at B'nai David-Judea, I made sure that we read from this Torah from time to time, I wanted that it should be in Rabbi Schroit's merit. 

Rabbi Schroit was an exceptional personality, and too few people now know about the good deeds that he did, the foundations that he laid of the shul that they take part in.