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Avielah Barclay repairs a 200-year-old Torah scroll, making history in the process
February 12, 2009 12:51
Female scribe Avielah Barclay is making history — literally.
Ms Barclay, thought to be the first female scribe in more than 250 years, is currently repairing a 200-year-old rare memorial Torah from Klatovy, Czech Republic, which survived the Holocaust.
She was asked to restore it by Rabbi Jackie Tabick of North West Surrey Synagogue, where the scroll is on permanent loan.
Ms Barclay, 40, tells People: “All the scrolls I repair are very special but I really do like repairing Czech scrolls. It is so important to keep them going because of their significant history.” She adds: “It is also special to work on as a majority of the Czech scrolls are written by Kabbalists, who had a particularly unique way of writing. They had a different way of laying letters out and did special spirals.”
The scroll had previously been preserved by six generations of one family before being adopted by the North West Surrey Synagogue.
Ms Barclay says she had wanted to be a scribe since a young age but faced a considerable obstacle — she wasn’t Jewish. She completed an Orthodox conversion in 2003 and later moved to Jerusalem, where she trained as a soferet (female scribe). She says some scrolls can take several months to repair. “It depends what’s wrong with them.”
Home is now in Ilford, Essex, where she lives with her husband, fellow scribe Marc Michaels.
How did the couple meet? Scribing, of course.