Abstract

A Torah binder is a long piece of cloth consisting of mostly four smaller pieces sewn together. It is used to tie a Torah scroll together when not in use. On the binder is embroidered or painted a standardized Hebrew inscription stating the Hebrew name of a newborn boy and his father, his Hebrew date of birth and the phrase: “May God raise him to the Torah, to the marriage canopy and to good deeds. Amen. Selah”. A border of motif of flowering vines and an illustration of the name of the boy and his father and the child’s zodiac sign are very common on the Danish binders. The Danish collection belonging to the Jewish community in Copenhagen is unique, since nearly all of them have been identified, which is rarely true for other collections. The Danish collection of Torah binders can tell us different things according to the perspective adopted, especially when they are combined with all the facts yielded by other ceremonial artifacts and by Danish-Jewish cultural history.