Rabbi Aaron Braun Represents Northbrook Community Synagogue at the Yom HaShoah Ceremony In Princeton, NJ

Rabbi Aaron Braun represented Northbrook Community Synagogue at the Yom Ha Shoah ceremony held at The Jewish Center in Princeton, New Jersey on April 22. Rabbi Braun will become the spiritual leader at Northbrook Community Synagogue beginning this summer.

Yom Ha Shoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, reunited all seven Torah scrolls from the small town of Susice, Czechoslovakia. Before the Holocaust, this Jewish community was the proud owner of all of the seven sacred scrolls. One of the recovered Torahs from Susice is on permanent loan to Northbrook Community Synagogue and was sent to Princeton as part of the reunion of all seven torah scrolls from Susice.

The entire community and the synagogue in that town were destroyed by the Nazis in World War II. The Jews of Susice were sent to the concentration camp, Terezinstadt, where many of those Jewish people met their demise. The community's Torah scrolls were recovered and eventually sent to communities in North America. One found its way to the Jewish Center in Princeton, New Jersey. The Jewish Center celebrated the reunion of all seven torah scrolls from this small community. The celebration was marked with music, dancing and storytelling. Hana Gruna, one of the oldest surviving members of the Susice Jewish community, joined in the celebration.

Rabbi Braun was one of a broad spectrum of people representing local, regional, national, Jewish, and other faith-based communities who joined together to ensure that the legacy of the Jewish communities that perished in the Holocaust is not lost.

"It was an amazing event and experience," said Rabbi Braun. "Hana Gruna is an incredible woman, and she was very moved by the reunion of the Torahs. There were over 700 people in attendance. It was really a powerful experience that I'm happy I was able to attend. I also met a number of people from Northbrook who were either originally from Northbrook or who had lived in the area at some point."