Chicago - New Synagogue's Torah Has Long History

Chicago - Bewigged Orthodox Jewish women, and black-hatted Orthodox men paraded down Touhy Avenue, and their shared jubilation was over something old and traditional. They danced to klezmer music, sang and shouted mazel tov as they surrounded a century-old Sefer Torah from Belarus that has been in one family for seven generations.

Hundreds took to the street to carry the holy scroll from Rabbi Zev Cohen's house to a new, expanded synagogue at 3050 W. Touhy: Congregation Adas Yeshurun Anshe Kanesses Israel.

One of the world's most prominent Orthodox rabbis, Mattisyahu Salomon, traveled from New Jersey's so-called Harvard of higher Jewish scholarship -- Beth Medrash Govoha -- to help move the Torah to a 131-year-old Holy Ark inside the synagogue. The Holy Ark, dates to an 1875 Maxwell Street congregation.

The Sefer Torah, was carried under a wedding canopy, or chuppah.

The Torah once belonged to Cohen's great-great-grandfather. His great-grandfather, Joseph Mael, carried it with him on the boat that ferried him to the United States. "This is a double day," Rabbi Cohen said. "It's a double day because we are celebrating the new synagogue, and we have a synagogue that's going nonstop in Chicago for some 135 years."