Ithaca College

Cohen

The long journey of a small Torah scroll into space inspired the creation of a documentary film to be discussed at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, February 23, in Park Auditorium. Its Emmy award-winning producer Dan Cohen will show excerpts from the work in progress, as part of his presentation “From the Holocaust to the Space Shuttle: The Journey of a Tiny Torah.”

Cohen’s film follows a small Torah scroll and the lives it touched as it traveled from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in World War II to the hands of Israel's first astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon, who took the scroll with him aboard the Columbia space shuttle. The story received global attention on January 21, 2003, when Col. Ramon held the scroll before the camera during a live feed from the space shuttle. Eleven days later the shuttle, the seven astronauts, and the tiny Torah scroll disintegrated upon reentering the atmosphere.

Astronaut Ramon

The Torah scroll had belonged to Joachim Joseph, head of the Israeli science team working with Ramon during the mission. Joseph was a Holocaust survivor who had celebrated his bar mitzvah in secret at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. A rabbi gave him the small scroll as his bar mitzvah gift with the condition that he promise to use the scroll to tell the story of what happened at the camp.

"The documentary is a story of many layers. It is the story of the rabbi struggling to help people survive the wretched conditions of Bergen-Belsen. It is the story of a young boy fulfilling his promise. It is the story of an Israeli air force pilot representing a small nation on a big journey. It is a story of human endurance, hope, and spirit," said Cohen.

Cohen is a 28-year veteran of live and postproduction television, winner of six regional Emmy awards, and founder of West Street Productions in Washington, DC.

His lecture is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by the Jewish studies program, the Roy H. Park School of Communications, Ithaca College Hillel, and Ithaca College Friends of Israel.