Here is the amazing background of this public celebration of Simchat Torah in Israel known as HaKafot Shniyot

In Florentin, a neighbourhood in Tel Aviv, there is a street named in memory of Rabbi Yitzchak Yedidya Frankel. In 1934, as a young communal rabbi in Rypin, Poland, Rabbi Frankel experienced a harrowing antisemitic encounter and, reading the writing on the wall, decided to emigrate to pre-state Israel.

A few months later, Rabbi Frankel and his family arrived in the Holy Land and moved into Florentin, where he taught in a local school and expended countless hours helping many new immigrants settle into the country. Rabbi Frankel served as the communal rabbi of Florentin for many years before becoming the chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

The Florentin community’s population was a potpourri of immigrants from Bukhara, Salonika, Morocco, Yemen, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Rabbi Frankel initiated numerous programs to unite this disparate group, but one particular event that he introduced became a nationwide tradition.

In Israel, the holiday of Simchat Torah – in which Jews celebrate the completion of the yearly cycle of Torah readings – falls on the same day as Shemini Atzeret, the last day of Sukkot. However, in the Diaspora, Simchat Torah is celebrated the day after Shemini Atzeret.

In October 1942, at the end of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, in the Ahavat Chesed Synagogue located on what is now Frankel Street, Rabbi Frankel made an impassioned plea to his congregants. According to his son-in-law Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau’s autobiography, Rabbi Frankel “removed a Torah scroll from the ark, and in a voice quivering with emotion, announced to the congregation: In Poland and elsewhere throughout war-torn Europe, the telephones aren’t working, the telegraph stations are closed, the mail no longer runs. Entire communities are cut off, and we do not know what has happened to their Jews.

“At this exact hour, in Warsaw, Krakow, and every other city in Poland, they should be beginning their Simchat Torah celebrations. But we do not know whether the synagogues are open, whether the Jews are allowed to go to them, whether they are performing the traditional processions holding the Torah scrolls. We are completely cut off from them, and despite our attempts to make contact, the communities do not answer. But all Jews are responsible for one another. Let us act in their stead and perform processions on their behalf, at least symbolically.”

At that point, the congregants followed Rabbi Frankel’s lead and took the Torah scrolls, sang songs, danced and completed a second night of hakafot (processions) on behalf of their brethren suffering unspeakable horrors in war-ravaged Europe.

This was how Rabbi Frankel initiated the Israeli tradition of hakafot shniyot, a second round of dancing with the Torah scrolls, held the night after the holiday of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. Over time, hakafot shniyot spread to practically every community across the country.

IDF combat soldiers of the Givati Brigade, who were friends with the late Staff Sergeant Ido Baruch z"l, celebrate HaKafot Shniyot in Samaria along with Yossi Dagan, the head of the Samaria council and local residents.

The other day I posted about 17 year old Itamar Elkoubi who had his skull crushed by a rock that an Arab hit him in the head with in Jerusalem. He was sedated and unconscious the entire time in the hospital but has now regained consciousness. His condition is now defined as moderate and stable.

This was the post I made: https://t.me/DocumentingIsrael/10355