Kahilu is commemorating Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, May 6, 2024, with a special
free community-access screening of a documentary film about a Holocaust Torah scroll. The story
unfolded halfway across the world, but landed here, in Kona. The remarkable tale crosses thousands of
miles and country borders before it settles in Hawai'i — a journey that’s been captured in the
documentary Black Fire White Fire.
The journey of the Torah from its beginnings travels with the Jewish people as the central object of their
faith, from the Land of Israel into Northern Italy and later into Bohemia. The migration follows European
history — through Hapsburg rule and shtetl (village) life, to the intellectual and artistic richness of
Prague before WWII, to the near-extinction of the Jewish people. The tale continues with the valiant
rescue of 1,564 Torah scrolls, orphan scrolls whose congregations were decimated during the Holocaust.
The long process of restoring the Torah shows how a Torah is made and repaired and how one particular
Torah, the Polna (Czech) Torah, came to its new home in Kona on Hawai'i Island.
Mahalos to the board and congregation of Kona Beth Shalom, Rabbi Moshe Druin, Barry Blum, Jeffrey
Ohrenstein of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, former Governor Linda Lingle, Brittni Paiva, John Keawe, and
Kumu Keala Ching.

Film is 39 minutes in running length.

For educational purposes only on Kahilu.TV. FILM MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED.