The Jerusalem Post reports:
A 150-year old Torah dedicated by a prominent Canadian AIDS researcher in memory of Shira Banki, 16, who was stabbed to death last July during Jerusalem’s annual Gay Pride Parade, has been donated to a municipality-founded Ethiopian synagogue in the capital.
The scroll, donated by Prof. Mark Wainberg, an internationally recognized expert in the field of HIV research at the Montreal Jewish General Hospital and McGill University of Montreal, was presented to the synagogue by Mayor Nir Barkat during a ceremony on Monday.
“After Prof. Wainberg heard about Banki’s tragic death, he decided to honor her memory by donating a Torah to a community in Jerusalem,” the municipality said in a statement.
Wainberg, who completed his post-doctoral research at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, is director of McGill’s AIDS Center at Montreal Jewish General Hospital, where he also teaches medicine and microbiology.
According to the municipality, the Torah was written in Baghdad and has been fully restored.
“The Jerusalem Municipality connected Prof. Wainberg with members of the Ethiopian community in the Katamonim neighborhood of Jerusalem, whose synagogue will house the Torah scroll,” the statement said.
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