Poland -- Hidden Beit Midrash in Bedzin

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

It's always inspiring to meet yet more people who take it upon themselves to care for and promote sites of Jewish heritage in Poland (and elsewhere). This week, I accompanied Tomek Kuncewicz and his group of fellows at the Auschwitz Jewish Center to the run-down town of Bedzin, where we visited a nondescript apartment that was once a private Beit Midrash, or prayer house -- and still has traces of the vivid paintings that once covered its walls.

photos (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

In March of this year, young people in the town created a Foundation -- the Fundacja Brama Cukerman (Cukerman's Gate Foundation) -- to conserve and protect the prayer house and make it available for visitors as part of Bedzin's rich Jewish heritage.

The Prayer House is located in an upstairs apartment at Aleja Kollataja 24 -- in a building that was part of a grand complex of tenement dwellings and businesses owned by Nuchim Cukerman. You have to enter a narrow courtyard (open at one end) and climb the stairs.

Courtyard. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Front of Cukerman house. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

After World War II, the Prayer House was divided into two rooms and a kitchen, to serve as a flat. The paintings were covered over by cheap paint and stenciling. Apparently the owner always knew about the hidden murals, which became known publicly a couple of years ago, when highschool students were brought in to clear off some of the over-paint with sponges and water.

The discovery of the Cukerman prayer house came on the heels of the discovery four years ago of another private prayer house, known as the Mizrachi synagogue, in a building nearby. The Mizrachi synagogue is closed -- and apparently the paintings have deteriorated seriously over the past four years.

The Brama Cukerman Foundation is also placing plaques on former Jewish sites, including places of business, such as a one-time Jewish cinema house, around town, to create a heritage route.

Hundreds of non-Jewish Poles have dedicated their time and passion over the past 20-30 years to preserve and protect sites of Jewish heritage and memory in Poland. For 10 years now, they have been honored by the Israeli Ambassador each year with an award initiated by the American lawyer Michael Traison and now presented at a ceremony during the Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow.

Award ceremony, at Galicia Museum. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

This year's honorees came from Lodz, Rymanow, Ryki and other towns...

Macedonia --Jewish Cemetery in Shtip to be Restored

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Good news -- the web site balkantravellers.com reports that the abandoned Jewish cemetery in Shtip (or Stip) Macedonia will be restored. Announcement of the project was made last month by the Institute and Museum of Shtip, which is in eastern Macedonia.

“The money for the reconstruction project was secured by the government, and with the project the Jewish cemetery will become a monument of culture,” Zaran Chitkushev, head of the Shtip Institute and Museum told the Dnevnik newspaper today.

The project involves the building of parking lots, pedestrian alleyways, benches, monuments, and the whole area of 14,000 square metres will be fenced by a wall.

“We are in constant contact with the European community in Macedonia. We will also invite an archaeologist from Israel as an associate,” Chitkushev added.

According to the jewish-heritage-europe.eu web site, there are about 120 gravestones still visible in the cemetery, but all have been vandalized and heavily damaged. There are probably many fragments scattered along the slope.

UPDATE -- Sam Gruber has posted pictures of the Stip cemetery -- click HERE.

Jewish settled in Stip in the 16th century -- as in much of the region, they were Sephardic Jews fleeing Iberia. In 1943, along with almost all the other Jews of Macedonia, the 560 Jews in Stip were deported to Treblinka death camp.

There is a Holocaust memorial in Stip, but as far as I know, no Jews live in the town anymore -- or maybe there are one or two still there. Eight or nine years ago, when I was in Macedonia for the annual ceremony marking the anniversary of the deportation of Macedonian Jews, I met a man who was described at the time as the last Jew in Stip....

Today, about 200 Jews lived in Macedonia, virtually all of them in the capital, Skopje, where there is a small, functioning synagogue. A Holocaust memorial museum and education center is under construction.

Elsewhere in Macedonia, renovation of the gateway to the historic Jewish cemetery in Bitola was recently completed -- see pictures on Sam Gruber's blog.

RUTHLESS COSMOPOLITAN at the Bratislava seminar

Synagogue in Sarmorin, the At Home Gallery, 2009. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

My latest Ruthless Cosmopolitan column is from the milestone Bratislava seminar on the care, conservation and maintenance of historic Jewish property.

March 26, 2009

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (JTA) – The restitution of Jewish communal property in Central and Eastern Europe has been a hot-button issue since the Iron Curtain fell nearly 20 years ago.

But often forgotten amid the slow and painful legal battles to get back historic Jewish properties that were seized by the Nazis or nationalized by postwar Communist regimes is the practical and urgent need to care for, conserve and maintain the properties once they’ve been recovered.

For two decades and more, I've documented, written about and photographed these sites, which include many yeshivas and synagogues.

Many are huge. Many are dilapidated. Some are recognized as historic monuments. Most stand in towns where few, if any, Jews now live. Even basic maintenance can stretch already strapped communal resources.

In March, I joined Jewish community representatives from 15 countries who gathered to address these concerns at a seminar held in the Slovak capital, Bratislava.

The aim of the meeting was to foster networking and cross-border consultation and spark creative strategic thinking. Many participants had never met before and had little awareness of how colleagues in other countries were confronting similar challenges. Some knew little about the variety of Jewish heritage sites in other countries.

The meeting dealt with issues ranging from fundraising to roof repair to what Jewish law says about synagogue re-use.

During the seminar, which was organized by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the International Survey of Jewish Monuments and the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center, we visited several sites in the Bratislava area to see how some best-practice solutions had been implemented.

One was the former synagogue in Samorin, a small town southeast of Bratislava, built in 1912.

Back in the early 1990s, it was a derelict shell standing silent and empty on the outskirts of the shabby city center. Its lonely position and crumbling façade underscored its poignancy as a surviving relic of the devastated past.

Since then, it has undergone a dramatic transformation.

Owned by the Union of Slovak Jewish Communities, it is now held on a long-term lease by a couple who took over the building in 1995, restored it and transformed it into the At Home Gallery, a center for contemporary art.

The synagogue is used for cultural purposes aimed at the public at large. It even once hosted the Dalai Lama.

It also now forms part of a new tourism and educational trail called the Slovak Route of Jewish Heritage, which links about 20 historic Jewish sites around the country.

In restoring the building, Csaba Kiss and his Canadian-born wife, Suzanne, deliberately chose to retain evidence that the interior had been desecrated. The walls still bear painted decoration, but the paintings are faded and patchy; they have not been retouched or prettied up.

"Our idea was not to touch the walls," Kiss once told me. "They have memories; we can see them. It's special."

At the seminar's conclusion, participants agreed on a set of pragmatic guidelines with best-practice principles and procedures for the Jewish properties.

Jewish heritage, the guidelines state, "is the legacy of all aspects of Jewish history – religious and secular." At the same time, "Jewish history and art are part of every nation’s history and art. Jewish heritage is part of national heritage, too."

These assertions may appear to state the obvious, but given contentious internal Jewish politics and the taboos and prejudice that historically applied to Jewish culture in Europe, they actually articulate crucial basic concepts. And the guidelines as a whole, while non-binding, represent a milestone when it comes to restituted Jewish properties.

Addressing a frequently heard criticism of Jewish communal management style, the guidelines state, "Honesty and transparency are Jewish values and should be especially apparent in the handling of all matters concerning Jewish property." The guidelines urge detailed documentation of Jewish communal properties and heritage sites and underscore the need for openness and collaboration among Jewish and non-Jewish institutions.

Will these guidelines be followed? Probably not to the letter. Financial considerations, legal obstacles, local conditions and human nature, among other things, prevent adherence to ideals.

Still, they form a framework that can influence practice and, perhaps, finally bring these sites the maintenance and preservation they – and the Jewish people – need.

Belarus -- Kobrin Synagogue in Danger

Sam Gruber has begun posting material from the Bratislava Jewish heritage seminar, and probably will provide more detail -- or at least different detail -- than I am posting... after all, he was one of the organizers of the meeting.

At the seminar, he was able to speak at length with Bella Velikovskaja, of the Jewish Heritage Research Group in Belarus (and the Union of Jewish Religious Communities) about the serious threats to the former synagogue in Kobrin, a monumental structure built in 1868 which was restituted back to the Jewish commuity in 2004. The building was used for grain storage and a beverage-production plant after World War II. The government threatens to take back the building unless restoration work begins -- and funds are short.

Sam writes:

The situation at Kobrin is now urgent, because the government which returned the large 19th-century masonry synagogue to the Jewish community in 2004 threatens to take it back unless restoration work begins. This is a situation that is also becoming common in Poland. After holding Jewish properties for a half century or more and letting them deteriorate into near-ruins, they are returned to communities - but without any financial assistance to restore them. Communities must not only quickly find a use for the building, but also the funds to make them work. Sometimes years pass and nothing happens. Sometimes governments demand quick action. I frequently say the situation is similar to being asked to make soup. One is given the carrots and potatoes, but not pot to cook them in, and sometimes not even a fire. Consequently communities are overburdened. In Belarus, there is a real plan for Kobrin. But there is not enough money. And the government threatens to take the building back if nothing happens soon.

Read full post

Romania -- Agreement to Restore Zion Synagogue

Zion Synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Livia Chereches, whom I met at the recent seminar on managing historic Jewish property in Bratislava, has written with exciting news. The landmark Zion synagogue in Oradea, Romania, is going to (finally) undergo restoration.

A grandiose Neolog temple with a soaring dome, the synagogue is a city landmark that towers over the Cris river. Built in 1878, it was designed by David Busch, the town's chief municipal architect. Its interior features columns, arches, and vaulting decorated by geometric designs (painted by Mor Horovitz from Kosice). The Ark is framed by an elaborate arch and surmounted by a pipe organ.

Interior of Zion Synagogue, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Livia writes that under an agreement signed by the President of the Jewish Community Oradea, Felix Koppelmann, and the mayor of Oradea, the town will assume control of the synagogue and use it for exhibitions and other cultural purposes, but on occasion it will also be used by the Jewish community for religious purposes.

This year the municipality will renovate the exterior of the building, and meanwhile European Union funding will be sought for the interior. What's more, a planned high-rise parking lot, that developers wanted to build in front of the synagogue, will now be built underground so that the striking view of the synagogue will be left free.

"This seems to be a happy end to a long story with unsuccessful attempts to save the Jewel of the town of Oradea," writes Livia.

Oradea, which has a Jewish community today numbering about 500 members, has about four other synagogues. Two are in the Jewish community compound (one in use and one closed for hoped-for renovation) and two have been converted for other use.

Vercelli -- Synagogue under Restoration

An article (in Italian) on the web site of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities describes the process of restoration that is current under way for the synagogue in Vercelli, between Milan and Turin in northern Italy. The synagogue stood almost abandoned and in very dilapidated condition for years. But some restoration work was carried out in 2003 and 2004, and a €700,000 project was begun in 2007. A very small Jewish community lives in Vercelli; community president Rossella Bottini Treves says that once restored, the synagogue will serve as a cultural space for the city. Read full article (in Italian).


The Vercelli synagogue: Photo from www.moked.it

The synagogue, inaugurated in 1878, was designed by Marco Treves, the Vercelli-born architect who also designed the synagogue in Florence. With its Moorish-style striping and flat, tripartite facade with a raised central portion, it resembles several important synagogues in Central Europe whose design was inspired by the Tempelgasse synagogue in Vienna, designed by Ludwig von Foerster and built in the 1850s, which was destroyed on Kristallnacht -- these include the destroyed synagogue in Zagreb and the Choral Synagogue in Bucharest, among others.

Choral Synagogue, Bucharest, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Synagogue in Vrbove, Slovakia, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Malta -- Controversy over Jewish Catacombs. Religion versus Archeology

Controversy is brewing in Malta over the ancient Jewish catacombs. According to the Times of Malta, it appears to center over who has control of the site, what the site should represent -- purely a religious burial ground, or also a site of important archeological significance -- and how to reconcile the two.

The Jewish catacombs in Rabat were at the centre of controversy in recent days after Heritage Malta called in police when a Jewish religious delegation allegedly entered the site without authorisation.

The Jewish community in Malta is demanding that the human bones found inside the catacombs are given a proper burial according to Jewish rites.

A Jewish delegation made up of at least 10 experts, Rabbis and archaeologists from Israel and the US was brought over to Malta by the Jewish community to carry out the burial.

Heritage Malta CEO Luciano Mulè Stagno confirmed that a Jewish delegation last week entered the site without authorisation, a claim denied by a representative of the Jewish community in Malta.

"We lodged a police report and for some time a policeman was also placed on guard outside the entrance," Dr Mulè Stagno said.

Lawrence Attard Bezzina, a representative for the Jewish community, denied that the delegation entered the site unlawfully..

[ . . . .]

"We are seeking an agreement that respects their requests but is also in line with Maltese legislation. The Jewish community are looking at the site purely in religious terms as a burial site. We concur with the idea but for us it is more than just that because it is an important archaeological site of unique value," Dr Mulè Stagno said.

The site, which is across the road from the entrance to St Paul's catacombs, has never been open to the public and is currently being restored by Heritage Malta with EU funds.

The Jewish catacombs form part of the larger St Paul's catacombs complex in Rabat and were discovered at the end of the 19th century. They date back to the late Roman period some 1,500 years ago and are unique since they are Jewish catacombs within a Christian complex.

Read full article -- and make sure to take a look at the comments

Emotions on Visiting a Jewish Cemetery in (East-Central) Europe

Nazna, Romania, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Visiting a Jewish cemetery in Europe, and particularly in East-Central Europe, can be an emotional experience.

This holds true whether you go there as a volunteer helping clean up an abandoned cemetery overgrown by weeds and trees, or as someone on a roots trip looking for a long-lost, or long-forgotten, family grave, or as a "straight" tourist interested in history or the powerful imagery of tombstone art.

In the introductory chapter of Jewish Heritage Travel: A Guide to Eastern Europe I addressed these emotions, describing how I myself felt when I began exploring these sites.

I became absolutely mesmerized, even a little obsessed with what I was seeing. I wanted to visit, touch, see, feel as many places as I could. I almost felt it a duty. As I entered broken gates or climbed over broken walls into cemeteries where a Jew may not have set foot in years, I wanted to spread my arms and embrace them all, embrace all the tombstones, all the people buried there, all the memories.

In the first editions of the book, I added a further sentence, describing how I projected my thoughts toward these all so often forgotten places: I'm here, I told them mentally; SOMEONE is here.

Back then, my trips were voyages of discovery. Everything was new; there was little literature on the subject, few visitors had made their way to such sites, and there were few efforts to preserve, maintain or restore them. But even today, after scholars and genealogists and tour guides have studied and mapped and documented almost everything -- I still feel the pull.

An eloquent expression of the power of this pull -- one that in many ways mirrors my own feelings -- was recently published in the Jerusalem Post. It's an article called "The Other Side," by Jonathan Gillis, who had taken part in a project to restore the Jewish cemetery in Czestochowa, Poland. The article is a tribute to the late Aryeh Geiger, the founder and head of the Reut School in Jerusalem, who also instituted the school's project to restore Jewish cemeteries in Poland. I did not know Geiger, who died at the end of 2008.

Gillis describes working to find stones hidden by ivy and undergrowth and heaving to right them and turn them over. And he describes reading a letter, originally composed by Geiger, that imagines how the individual people whose lives are marked by the individual stones might address the strangers who had suddenly come into their midst to seek them out, restore them to light and, thus, restore them also to memory:

I chose a tombstone quite near to the main path running through the cemetery. It was one I'd uncovered myself that morning, as I'd searched about under the ivy with my metal bar: the tombstone of an avrech - a young unmarried man stricken down in the prime of his youth. His name, which looked like Ya'acov, had been partly chipped off the stone, though the name of his father, Naftali, was clearly there, and also the date he had died.

I sat down on the ground next to the grave and lit the candle, and then opened the folded-up paper and, by the candlelight in the gathering gloom, read the letter Aryeh had once written in his own hand: "Dear Friend," it read, "First of all I wanted to say thank you to you for coming to visit me from the Holy Land. When you all entered my little fortress by the gateway, I was sure I was hallucinating and that my mind was deceiving me. Of course I don't have eyes or a body, and quite possibly my bones have long since disintegrated... however my spirit and soul are very much here and alive in this cemetery.

"I don't know why you came to me now. I know that you have cleaned me and restored me and my friends, and we all feel as if our spirits have been splendidly brought back to life by this.

"You know I too was alive once, breathed the air, loved, hiked, prayed; I was also once a very proud Jew. Then, after I left the world, it made me sad when the undergrowth came and hid me. I felt neglected and abandoned. And then, suddenly, you appeared, reconnected with my soul and 'revived' me.

"If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a few questions - from 'the other side' as it were... from behind the screen - the world that you call 'the world of truth' (though my soul is actually present right here this evening) - just a few questions from me to you: Who are you really?

"What brought you to me and what was it really that made you decide to visit me and revive me? How beautiful is the Land of Israel - is it important to you that you are an Israeli?

"Do you gain satisfaction from being Jewish?

"For as long as you're on 'the other side,' what is it you want to do with your life?

"Will you remember me when you leave here?

"What is it in your view that gives life value?

"I do hope you'll think about these questions because I would like you to continue talking with me. Even if you leave me here, I'd still like to stay in touch. I'd like you to remember me always, and always feel free to talk with me (a dialogue of souls).

"On behalf of myself and all my friends, I am very grateful. Now my soul really does dwell in the realm of life.

"With love, and thanks, your tombstone."

Read Full Article

Back in 1991, while researching the first edition of Jewish Heritage Travel, I had an almost mystical experience in the old Jewish cemetery in Nazna, near Targu Mures, Romania. Here, in a sort of clearing in the center, I found one stone shaped almost like a human being; its back even curved like the back of a living person. I somehow felt a living presence. Not that the stone was "alive", but that it embodied a strong, surviving spirit. A man, a mentsch. I was very reluctant to leave. The man buried here was named Moses, son of Israel. His epitaph tells us that he was a man of integrity; the carved decoration represents a crown, and an upside-down heart pierced by an arrow.

I keep a picture of me and the stone tacked to the bulletin board above my desk -- the stone stood upright, almost as tall as I am. It was early early spring; barren and still chill.

When I visited Nazna again, 15 years later, I was as excited to revisit that stone as I would have been to revisit a friend I hadn't seen in that long a time...This time it was summer, and the fruit trees planted since I had last been there made a rich, green, leafy bower. The stone seemed to be more tilted over, as if by added age. Its carved decoration, too, was more blurred. Still, the connection was there. I felt the same spirit, only a little older perhaps, like me. It was still a man, a mentsch. And it was great to see him.

Nazna, Romania, 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Synagogue restored in Beirut

This is a bit out of the 'hood, but Haaretz runs a nice piece about the restoration of the Maghen Abraham Synagogue synagogue in downtown Beirut....

Renovations on the ruined synagogue, which was built in 1925, began in 2009

after an agreement between various religious denominations and permission from the Lebanese government, planning authorities and even Hezbollah. The project received the green light after political officials and community leaders became convinced it could show that Lebanon is an open country, tolerant of many faiths including Judaism. [...]

Renovations have included mending the gaping hole in the Moroccan-style synagogue's roof and repairing the chandeliers that once hung from it. The Torah ark and prayer benches will also be refurbished to their former states, having been seriously damaged in fighting between Muslim and Christian forces during the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war.

Several dozen Jews still living in Lebanon will fund the project to the tune of $200,000, along with others in the Diaspora. The project has also received a $150,000 grant from Solidere, a construction firm tasked with rebuilding central Beirut from the destruction of the civil war. The company is privately owned by the family of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister assassinated in 2005.

Read full story by clicking RIGHT HERE

Poland -- Jozefow Jewish Cemetery Cleaned Up

The historic Jewish cemetery in Jozefow Bilgorajski in eastern Poland has been cleaned up, thanks to a project that was co-financed by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland (FODZ) and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The Foundation has posted a photo gallery showing the cemetery after the clean-up work.

Jews settled in Jozefow in the 18th century, and by 1921 nearly 80 percent of the local population was Jewish. A very nice baroque-style synagogue, built in the late 18th or early 19th century, now serves as the town library.

Jozefow 2006. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The oldest tombstones in the cemetery date from the 1760s. I visited there in the summer of 2006, when I was doing the updates for Jewish Heritage Travel. The local librarian was very helpful, giving me explicit instructions how to find the cemetery, located near quarries on a hill just outside town. Access is via a dirt road off Kamienna street.


Parts of the cemetery were -- sort of -- clear, or at least fairly accessible, even in "high weed" season. But much of the cemetery was jungle.... Here are some photos to compare how it was, with the pictures on the FODZ site showing the area after clean-up.

Photos (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Synagogues -- Painted Curtains, etc

Sam Gruber has posted a detailed description and commentary on the Kupa synagogue in Krakow, based on a visit he made there recently. It's an excellent guide to the synagogue and discussion of issues raised in the restoration/renewal of the building carried out several years ago. He discusses in some detail the decorative painting on the walls and ceiling of the sanctuary.

The synagogue was in very dilapidated condition when I saw it first in 1990. I was told it had been used as a matzo factory after WW2. In Virtually Jewish, I quoted Monika Krajewska, who first visited the Kupa synagogue in the 1970s, when it was used as a warehouse:

"We stared at the walls, with their paintings: the lions, the deer, all the things that relate to Jewish biblical tradition of synagogue decoration. And there were workers who were just installing additional shelves; they were making holes in the lion's nose, in the instruments of the Levites painted on the ceiling."

Among the decorative elements discussed by Sam is that of curtains painted around the Ark -- in the picture below, Alan Bern, on piano, accompanies Lorin Sklamberg singing in front of the Ark of the Kupa at the Jewish Culture Festival in 2004.

Photo (c) R. E. Gruber


Sam writes:

A second decorative element that interests me a lot is the painting around the Ark, which is a large and impressive Baroque construction. On the wall behind the projecting stone Ark is painted a large red curtain, drawn apart just above the apex of the Ark. Of course this too, can have Temple associations, since a curtain in the Temple hung before the entrance of the Holy of Holies. Here, though, the curtain is hung behind the Ark, and it is open. What does it mean? Is it an earthly curtain, intended to create the illusion of greater synagogue space? Is it a symbolic curtain, representing either Temple or perhaps the revelation of the Torah? Or perhaps is it a curtain allowing a glimpse form this world into another? It could be all these things, or none. I’m not going to decide. But since I’m looking I am seeing these curtains almost everywhere - and they are one of the favorite European (or Polish) synagogue decorative devices carried over by immigrant artists from the old world to the new. I'm still looking for some contemporary user - a rabbi or congregant - who commented on their position and use.

I, too, have seen painted curtains around Arks in synagogues in several countries. Here is a short slide show of some of them: you can see the variety of construction of the Ark itself, as well as the way in which the curtain motif is used.

Poland -- synagogue in Bedzin renovated and reopened

 Before and After pictures from the Cukierman Gate web site

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Mazel Tov! The Cukierman prayer house, the little private synagogue found hidden in an apartment block in the Silesian town of Bedzin in southern Poland, has been renovated and reopened to the public thanks to a grant from the province. The striking wall paintings that show scenes of Jerusalem, musical instruments and other motifs, were preserved and restored during the six-month restoration project. The prayer house will be open every Saturday afternoon.

Thanks to the last year’s subsidy from the Śląskie Province Conservation Officer it was possible to renovate and partly reconstruct the surviving polychromes. Apart from renovating the paintings, the interior of the prayer house was also slightly rearranged, so that it would be adapted for meetings with young people and all participants of cultural events. [...]  The Cukerman prayer house is one of about forty prayer houses that have survived and are open to visitors in Poland, and it is the only relic in the Śląskie Province, reminding of its past and its Jewish community.

For more information see the Cukierman Gate foundation Web Site -- there are lots of photos documenting the restoration process.

I visited the hidden prayer house last summer and wrote about it on this blog, describing how it is always inspiring to meet  people who take it upon themselves to care for and promote sites of Jewish heritage in Poland (and elsewhere).

Egypt -- Restored Synagogue to be Dedicated

 

 Video of work on the synagogue

 By Ruth Ellen Gruber

This is a bit off geographic topic, but (as Rabbi Andrew Baker notes in an op-ed today) after an 18-month restoration project by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, this historic Maimonides (or Rambam, or "Rav Moshe") synagogue and yeshiva in Cairo is to be reopened and rededicated next week.

Sam Gruber has reported that

This is the first major restoration of Jewish site in Egypt since the much-heralded restoration Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue in the 1980s and early 1990s, a project put in motion during the euphoria following the Camp David Accords. [...] The Synagogue is actually a 19th century construction that replaces older buildings, but is adjacent to  an historic and venerated yeshiva associated with Maimonides. - which itself has had a recent history of disasters - recurring flooding from underground water and 1992 earthquake damage. The Yeshiva rooms have niches where, until recently, sick Jews, Muslim and Christians would spend the night praying for their recovery, or for women especially, fertility.

Baker, the director of international Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee, has an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune/NYTimes web site about the synagogues, the restoration and the politics around the project.  For the past five years Bakes has met regularly on behalf of the American Jewish Committee with Egyptian officials to press for the preservation of Jewish heritage, which, in addition to Rav Moshe, includes a dozen synagogues and several cemeteries in Cairo and Alexandria, most of them in poor repair.

The nearly $2 million restoration involved a team of Egyptian experts. Few people were aware of it until last September when Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s antiquities czar, brought reporters to the site and declared: “It’s part of our history. It’s part of our heritage,” Dr. Hawas proudly declared. Some cynics suggested that the project was initiated to shore up the candidacy of Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosny, in his unsuccessful bid to head Unesco.

But, write Baker: this was not just any synagogue. Rav Moshe was considered to have special healing powers. One elderly Egyptian Jew now living in Europe told me how his childhood stuttering disappeared after his mother made him spend the night there. His miracle cure was a commonplace experience for many of Cairo’s Jews who sometimes called it the “Jewish Lourdes.”  [...]

In Maimonides’ day, Cairo’s Jewish community was a center of scholarship and commerce, a hub of Jewish life for the entire Middle East. When[ King] Fuad ruled Egypt, more than 80,000 Jews were among his subjects. They were an active, integral presence in the business and cultural life of the country. But that all changed after Israel’s creation in 1948, and especially after Gamal Abdel Nasser seized power in 1953, prompting a mass exodus of Jews. Today’s Jewish population in Egypt is a mere few dozen. [...]

Both Farouk Hosny and Zahi Hawass came to accept the argument that the preservation of Egypt’s rich Jewish heritage was also their obligation. Slowly but quietly — always quietly — they drew up plans for restoring most Jewish religious sites. They even endorsed our proposal that one of the restored synagogues should serve as a Museum of Egyptian Jewish Heritage, a place that would tell of the long, rich history of Jewish life in Egypt. Only a few knew. Every meeting I had with these Egyptian officials ended with the same admonition — “Please, do not tell anyone.”

Why the secrecy when most governments would want the world to know of such commendable preservation work? In Egypt, the history of living alongside Jewish neighbors has been replaced with the demonizing of Israel, and often of Jews as well. The historic 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty has for too long been ignored by Egypt’s cultural elites who have steadfastly rejected any normalization in relations. Minister Hosny and his colleagues have had reason to fear that Egyptians would react with anger when told of the restoration work.

But the word is out now. And Zahi Hawass, an archeological legend known around the world for touting pyramids and the treasures of King Tut, is now reading up on the deeds of a medieval rabbi. Dr. Hawass promises that six more synagogue buildings in Cairo will be restored within two years. Egypt’s Jewish artifacts will never rival those of the Pharaohs. But reminding today’s Egyptians and others in this troubled region of a time when Jews were a natural part of Egyptian society is important. It may even be a ray of hope when hope is so hard to find in this region. Maybe there will emerge one more miracle to credit to Rav Moshe.

Read full article at the web site

Poland -- Wroclaw synagogue: restoration of interior complete

 Photo from Gazeta Wroclawska newspaper. Click HERE

Gazeta Wroclawska newspaper reports that the restoration of the interior of the historic White Stork Synagogue in Wroclaw has been completed. The article is in Polish (it translates with Google translate) but also runs pictures you can see by clicking HERE.

The synagogue is to be rededicated in May. The article states that interior furnishings will be installed in April.

I posted previous information on the restoration in December -- click HERE.

Poland -- Restoration of the Wroclaw Synagogue Almost Complete

 White Stork Synagogue, restored facade (Photo: Bente Kahan Foundation)

 White Stork Synagogue before restoration. (Photo: Bente Kahan Foundation)

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The Wroclaw, Poland-based Norwegian singer Bente Kahan reports that the restoration of the historic White Stork Synagogue in Wroclaw is nearly complete, and that the synagogue will be rededicated next May 6.

As I reported on this blog from Wroclaw last year, Kahan set up a foundation in 2006 (The Bente Kahan Foundation) whose main aim is the restoration of the synagogue and creation of a modern Jewish Culture Center and Jewish Museum there. The Center has already been operating in the partially-restored synagogue, organizing, the web site states: "exhibits, film screenings, workshops, lectures, concerts and theatre performances. Included in their programs are also their own productions 'Wallstrasse 13' and 'Voices from Theresienstadt' featuring local actors and musicians, as well as 'Sing with us in Yiddish', a concert with children from Wroclaw."

The Bente Kahan Foundation, supported by the Municipality of Wroclaw and the Association of the Jewish Religious Communities in Poland has a clear vision of future functions of the synagogue. The Center for Jewish Culture and Education will strengthen the role of the temple as one of the most attractive spiritual centres in the country by opening its doors for concerts, shows, theatre, workshops, films, lectures seminaries and so on. This living Jewish heart in the centre of Europe will beat even stronger!

The creation of the modern Jewish Museum in Wroclaw (2012) will definitely help to reach that goal. The Museum will be located in the basement and on the balconies of the synagogue floors. The Staircases and the separate entry will enable free communication with the building without disturbing the sacral and cultural space of the temple. By using of modern 3D and holographic techniques, the museum will show the rich and unique world of the Silesian Jews and their thousand-years-old history. It will also be a place for exhibitions, lectures and workshops. The museum will become no just another tourist attraction but also an important link in the educational proces, especially in the context of young people.

Kahan has set up web site dedicated to the synagogue and its restoration (only in Polish).

Interior before renovation. (Photo: Bente Kahan Foundation)

Interior after renovation (Photo: Bente Kahan Foundation)

Before World War II, Wroclaw, known in German as Breslau, was part of Germany and Germany's third-largest Jewish community. Originally inaugurated in 1829,  the White Stork synagogue is an elegant neo-classical structure designed by Karl Ferdinand Langhans. (For a complete history of the building, click HERE.) It is the only synagogue in the city to have survived the War and languished in disrepair for many years. It was returned to Jewish community ownership in the mid-1990s, after which sporadic restoration work was carried out. (A symbolic event in this process was the wedding there in 2000 of the American filmmakers Ellen Friedland and Curt Fissel, who run the documentary company JEM/GLO.)

There is still a small Jewish community in Wroclaw, which uses a refurbished prayer room in the synagogue complex. A big Jewish Culture Festival called Simcha takes place in Wroclaw each summer.

Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Wroclaw also has two fascinating Jewish cemeteries.

The Old Jewish Cemetery, founded in 1856, is now maintained as a municipal Museum of Cemetery Art.  Located on Slezna street, it has about 12,000 graves, including 300 elaborate monuments ranged around the walls. The earliest known Jewish gravestone in Poland, that of a David ben Shalom, who died in 1203, is conserved here. Notable people are buried here include the German Social Democratic leader Ferdinand LaSalle (1825-1864) and the parents of Edith Stein, a Jewish intellectual and convert to Catholicism who became a nun, was killed at Auschwitz and was canonized by Pope John Paul II.

Detail of a Tombstone in the Old Jewish Cemetery: a snake circling an hour glass. Photo (c) ruth Ellen Gruber

Bulgaria -- pictures of the restored Sofia Synagogue

Sofia, Sept. 9 , 2009. Photo courtesy Robert Djerassi

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

My last post included news about the restoration of the Great Synagogue in Sofia, with ceremonies marking the synagogue's 100th anniversary.

Robert Djerassi, whom I quoted and who was one of the organizers of the celebrations, has sent a couple of pictures of the event -- he and everyone else in Sofia I've talked to say they can't believe how beautiful it is.

Sofia, Sept. 9, 2009. Photo courtesy of Robert Djerassi