Obj. ID: 10858
Sacred and Ritual Torah mantle, Thessaloniki (Salonika), 1921
The trapezoid Torah mantle comprises a cloak attached to a round top, and a vertical back opening. It is decorated on its upper front face with a crown, flanked by two Stars of David. Below the crown is a Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) dedicatory inscription embroidered in square filled letters, which reads:
"ק"ק (קהל קדוש) בית שאול/ הקדש די/ איסטירינה די/ משה מ' בינביניסטי התרפא (=5681)." "
Translation: (Dedicated to) The Beit Saul Holy Congregation (Remarks: no. 1). Made by Istrinah (wife of) Moses M. Benvenisti. The year 5681 (1921).
Below the inscription is a wreath of two flowering stems with leaves bound by a ribbon. The round top has two openings for the Torah staves. A fringed strip surrounds the top and bottom edges of the cloak.
sub-set tree: 
W | Wreath
O | Ornamentation: | Foliate and floral ornaments | Floral motif
C | Crown
|
Cloth: dark red silk velvet
Lining: cotton uneven twill
Inscription: silk threads in chain stitch embroidery
Additions: machine-made fringed strip
Width: 460 mm
Diameter: 230 mm
Intact
The Beit Saul synagogue was established around 1898, in the new Jewish Quarter of Hamidie . It was designed by the Italian Architect Vitaliano Poselli, who built several buildings around the city. Samuel Saul Modiano's wife, Fakhimah, dedicated the synagogue and named it after her late husband.
The building was structured as a large basilica with a women's section, which ran along three sides. The Torah Ark was located in the east, while the Bimah was an elaborated marble structure set in the centre. After the destruction of most synagogues in the great fire of 1917, the Beit Saul Synagogue became the city's central synagogue. The synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis after the deportation of the Jewish community, in 1943 (cf. Messinas. The Synagogues, pp. 84-86, synagogue no. 46; Kerem,Salonika, p. 245).
- A collection of ritual objects was confiscated from the Greek Jews when they were transported toAuschwitzduring World War II. In 1949, this Torah mantle was handed to the Jewish Historical Institute fromTorun, a city in northernPoland, where the Nazis had concentrated the ritual objects from different places, mainly fromPoland.
Kerem, Yitzchak, and Bracha Rivlin, "Salonika" In Pinkas Hakehillot: Encycloapedia of Jewish Communities from their Foundation till after the Holocaust: Greece. Ed. By Bracha Rivlin ( Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998).
Messinas, Elias. The Synagogues of Salonika and Veroia. (Athens: Gavrielides Editions, 1997)
Online collection of the ritual objects from the E. Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute is available here: http://cbj.jhi.pl/collections/964689