Some 1,000 Jews from around the world gathered Wednesday in Lublin to mark the completion of a ceremonial reading of the Talmud, a tradition started in the eastern city 82 years ago that continued unbroken through the Nazi occupation of Poland.
The ceremony marked the 11th complete reading of the 2,711-page Talmud at one-page per day. It comes some 60 years after the Nazi occupation of Poland, in which three million Polish Jews were killed, practically obliterating what was once a thriving community.
The tradition, started by Rabbi Meir Shapiro in 1923, has been taken up by hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide. But the Lublin reading is particularly significant, participants said.
"What is unique about what is happening here, this is the very spot where it all began, all those years ago," London Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, who is attending the ceremonies told The Associated Press by phone.
"When thousands of Jews can stand tall and proud joining together for one night of great religious spirit to mark the completion of the Talmud at the very spot where 60 years ago others tried to bring it all to an end, and especially today in a day and age when there are those who are trying to perpetuate anti-Semitism, then this is a true cause for celebration."
The event organized by Rabbinical Center of Europe, was held in the former rabbinical school where Shapiro began the tradition.
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