This portion of a Torah scroll was taken from a synagogue in Jaffa (now part of Tel Aviv) during the riots of 1921. It came into the possession of a Mr and Mrs Shelley, who sent it to their friend Deaconess Sophie Newton, a CMS missionary in Foochow (Fuzhou), China. A fellow missionary who knew some Hebrew read it aloud to a local Chinese person who added the annotations. Deaconess Newton used the parchment as an aid to study and prayer during prayer meetings for the Jews, which she had held ever since 1900. She also coordinated fundraising for various projects including the Hospital for the Jews in Jerusalem, translation and distribution of Hebrew scriptures and the sponsorship of a pupil in a school in Jerusalem.
Sophie Newton worked in China from 1897 until 1931, and experienced the Boxer Rebellion and Nationalist Revolution, as well as early communist uprisings. She established schools, trained local evangelists known as ‘Bible women’ and worked in opposition to the opium trade and the practices of foot binding and infanticide. Her life and testimony have been documented by her nephew Robert Banks and his wife Linda in the recent biography View from the faraway pagoda.
Dss Newton gave the parchment to Moore College in 1944 with the exhortation to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” (Psalm 122:6).
