May is Jewish American Heritage Month, an annual recognition and celebration of American Jews' achievements and contributions to the United States of America. It is also part of the inspiration behind our May (5/12/2026 at 10:30 AM) meeting of our monthly “World War Tuesday” coffee and conversation series. The other part is, to me, a pretty amazing “small world” story.
As the History Center’s “Outreach Historian,” a good part of what I happily get to do at my job is research local history and write and present about it in a variety of ways. One of those venues is this column. Others are monthly visits to local senior living facilities to talk about local history. One of my favorites is World War Tuesday. Sometimes I research and present a program myself, but I often try to get guest speakers who can offer their own unique perspective on events of the Second World War.
Since I’m always looking for new ideas for topics and speakers for these programs, my Central Library co-worker Larry “Taz” Sanchez, who took Hebrew language classes at the B’nai Zion Congregation in Shreveport, suggested I might ask their rabbi Jana DeBenedetti to speak. Taz told me something I’d not heard before: On display in the congregation’s foyer was an ancient Torah scroll (the sacred scroll containing the five books of Moses) that had been hidden from Nazis during the Holocaust in Germany’s Bavarian region. In 1938, the synagogue in the small town of Bad Neustadt was ordered to be cleared out by the Nazis, who commandeered the building for grain storage. A Christian farmer in the small town hid the Torah under the floor boards of his barn. When the war was over, no Jews remained in the town. The farmer presented the Torah to Jewish Army Chaplain David Lefkowitz, Jr. who had been sent to the Bavarian region to both minister to Jewish American troops as well as preside over the reconsecration of synagogues, including Bad Neustadt’s, which had also been used as an ammunition dump. The farmer requested that Rabbi Lefkowitz bring the ancient Torah back to his home congregation in Shreveport, where it could again be a central part of life of a congregation.
Before contacting Rabbi DeBenedetti, I decided to first do a little research and found some Shreveport newspaper articles that mentioned “the German Scroll”, as well as Rabbi David Lefkowitz Jr. who served the congregation from 1940 until his retirement in 1972, and continued to serve as Rabbi Emeritus until his death in 1999. He served as a chaplain for the US Army Air Corps during and just after WWII in Europe in from 1943 until 1946. As I read about Rabbi Lefkowitz and all that he did and saw during his service (in addition to reconsecrating synagogues and serving troops, he helped displaced Jews in Europe, and performed the blessing of remains of the victims at the Dachau concentration camp), I became intensely curious about his story, and wondered if there might still be family members or others who’d remember him or know his story well. And then…one of the articles, by late local historian Eric Brock mentioned by name one of the three children that Rabbi Lefkowitz and his wife Leona raised in Shreveport. I about fell off my chair when I saw the name of his daughter, Dr. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, who was one of my favorite professors years ago when I was in college in Massachusetts!
If you want to learn more about this story, please come to World War Tuesday on May 12, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. with B’nai Zion’s Rabbi Jana DeBenedetti and a virtual visit with Rabbi Lefkowitz’s daughter, Dr. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Sydenham Clark Parsons Professor Emerita of History and Professor Emerita of American Studies at Smith College. World War Tuesday meets every second Tuesday of the month at 10:30 a.m., so if you can’t make this one, please come to another. Please note: Starting Monday, May 4 the History Center, located inside the Bossier Central Library Complex, will be closed for up to two months while our new exhibits are installed. This means that our exhibit and research area will be closed, but we will continue to hold World War Tuesday and other programs in the Central Complex meeting room.
You can contact us at 318-746-7717 or 318-746-1693 or email history-center@bossierlibrary.org The Bossier Parish Libraries Central Complex is located at 7204 Hutchison Drive, Bossier City, LA. For other intriguing facts, photos, and videos, be sure to follow us @BPLHistoryCenter on FB, @bplhistorycenter on TikTok, and check out our blog at http://bpl-hc.blogspot.com/.
Images:
- Rabbi David Lefkowitz Jr. on Victory in Europe Day. Photo from collection of Dr. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz
- Photo of the German Torah Scroll, courtesy Rabbi Jana De Benedetti - B'nai Zion Congregation.
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