Shliach’s Siyum on “History”

AP

As Holocaust survivors languished in displacement camps around Europe at the close of World War II, the U.S. Army gave them some of their first tangible connections to their faith since before the war: passages from the Talmud.

Now two pieces of that limited printing have ended up in the hands of an Ohio rabbi, who will be using one in a pre-Passover service on Friday even as historians ponder their rarity and debate their impact on history.

The two tractates, or passages that help make up a collection of religious and civil law known as the Talmud, are dated 1946 and belong to a limited number of such books the U.S. Army authorized for publication.

They were created to help displaced Holocaust survivors who had their belongings, including religious materials, destroyed during World War II. Some experts say it’s unclear how many copies were printed or how many exist today, but they all agree they’re a collector’s item that offer a glimpse into a unique printing agreement that U.S. armed forces had following the war.

Rabbi Areyah Kaltmann, who runs the Schottenstein Chabad House at The Ohio State University in Columbus, snagged the two tractates from a New York City auction house for $600 on March 21. The Australian native said he owns several other tractates published in later years.

“I like to collect them,” the 45-year-old said. “I like these things because they’re meaningful.”

The Talmud is a compilation of Jewish oral law and stories about 1,500 years old. Historians and archivists say it’s also one of the few religious materials the U.S. Army ever authorized for publication.

Abby Meyer, who works at New York-based Kestenbaum and Company, which specializes in selling Judaic items and sold the books to Kaltmann, said the auction house has only sold a handful of single tractates in its more than 20 years in business.

The two tractates offer guidance on marriage and vows, and are the only two tractates published in 1946 because they were the most complete copies available at the time. They were published by the Va’ad Hatzalah – an emergency Orthodox rescue group which helped displaced rabbis – and the Rabbinical Council, a group made up entirely of U.S. chaplains who were Jewish. The Rabbinical Group was authorized to work for the U.S. Army in Germany.

The 1946 tractates were part of a U.S. Army effort to help distribute religious materials to displaced Holocaust survivors who had their belongings and spiritual readings destroyed during the war. Few copies of the Talmud, which can range in volume size, were immediately available after the war. But the two tractates called Kiddushin and Nedarim, which focus on marriage and vows, were distributed because they were the most accessible and preserved readings at the time. Distribution was limited, however, because of scarce materials and resources to print. But Bell said they were important printings because they got into the hands of survivors earlier than others.

Back in Columbus, Kaltmann plans to read the end of one of his tractates during a traditional ceremony before the beginning of the Passover holiday.

The ceremony usually calls for only one person to recite the end of one tractate, but Kaltmann and his three sons plan to complete the end of a tractate each in honor of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, who was recently killed with his two sons and another young girl in Toulouse, France.

“We’re trying to bring hope,” he said. “We’re trying to bring life and positivity to the shattered pieces we’re left with.”