The National Council of Young Israel and the International Young Israel Movement’s Israel region dedicated on Thursday a restored scroll at the Sirkin army base near Petach Tikvah, immediately north of Tel Aviv.

The Torah scroll is the 200^th scroll to be donated to the IDF and the first one in the Young Israel donation program that was saved from the Holocaust.  It was dedicated in memory of Ruby Davidman, who played a key role in launching the “Redeem a Sefer Torah Campaign,” which provides Israeli soldiers with Torah scrolls to enrich their spiritual lives and motivation.

“Today we’re dedicating the 200^th Sefer Torah to the army,” Rabbi Pesach Lerner, Executive Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel told Arutz Sheva. “It’s an unbelievable dream, and to know that these 200 are on the field being used by soldiers who are protecting the Jewish nation and we have a small part in assisting them that before they leave and when they come back they have a Torah to read from.”

“We have to give the spiritual strength that is the basis for the self-sacrifice that soldiers take with them into battle,” said Lt.-Col. (res.) Rabbi Yedidya Atlas, Rabbi of the IDF Ground Forces Command. “The Torah scrolls are something that brings together all of the Jewish religious. Everybody, religious and non-religious alike. The Sefer Torah belongs to all of them.”

The ceremony was particularly moving because of the fact that the grandson of the late Ruby Davidman in whose memory the scroll was dedicated, was there and in fact serves in the base to which the scroll was donated.

“It’s very moving that it’s happening here, at this base,” the young soldier said. “Grandfather put so much effort in bringing Sefer Torahs to IDF bases and now the project is in his memory. And the 200^th Sefer Torah which symbolizes the achievements of the project – it being brought to my base is a great honor.”