Very off geographical topic -- synagogue in Mumbai celebrates 150th anniversary

A ceremony Tuesday celebrated the 150th birthday of the Magen David synagogue in Mumbai, India. The synagogue, which underwent restoration last year, was built in 1861 by the philanthropist David Sassoon at a time when hundreds of Baghdadi Jews were migrating to India to escape religious persecution.

“This is probably the largest synagogue in India and, if you exclude those in Israel, probably the largest in Asia,” Solomon Sopher, chairman and managing trustee of the Sir Jacob Sassoon Charity and Allied Trusts, told India's Daily News & Analysis news agency.


He told the Mumbai Mirror (which also publishes a picture of the ceremony): “The Magen David synagogue is easily the biggest in India. Its beauty has been enhanced after the second renovation last year, at the cost of Rs 70 lakh.” He said the first renovation of the synagogue was done in 1910 by David Sasoon’s grandson Jacob.

Slovakia -- New Jewish Guidebook

Synagogue in Stupava. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Mazel tov to Maros Borsky on the publication of his valuable new bilingual Slovak-English guidebook to Jewish Monuments in western Slovakia. Zidovske pamiatky zapadneho Slovenska/Jewish Monuments of Western Slovakia  was launched last week in Bratislava and Trnava.

A slim paperback illustrated with full-color pictures of each site, the book provides details -- including GPS coordinates -- for Jewish heritage sites in  more than two dozen other towns in Slovak regions of Bratislava and Trnava, giving basic history and current details.

Most of these sites are off the beaten track and not included on the  Slovak Jewish Heritage Route, a network of 25 key sites around the country.

Amsterdam -- slice of history

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Nir Hasson reports in Ha'aretz how the discovery of a 25-year-old book in Israel reveals a fascinating slice of the Jewish history of Amsterdam -- as well as a clutch of mysteries.

Friday June 3, 1768, was an exciting day in the sizable Jewish community of Amsterdam. That day, the Stadtholder (chief executive) of Holland, William V of the House of Orange, arrived for a rare visit to the Jewish quarter and the synagogue, accompanied by his wife, Wilhelmina of Prussia. "Their Highnesses sat on the bench of the community elders, the other ministers and dignitaries were seated on two velvet benches on the north and south sides of the synagogue. As they entered the synagogue, the Holy Ark was opened, the cantors and vocalists had begun to sing 'Baruch Haba' [Welcome]" [...].

Stefan Litt, an archivist at the National Library in Jerusalem, found this description in the course of his research into the registries of the Ashkenazi communities (pinkassei kahal ) in the 17th and 18th centuries. The registry goes on to note that a community elder, Gumpel Klev, bestowed on the royal couple a keepsake from the community: "Two books printed on white satin, the cover pages beautifully ornamented with their insignia."

Two weeks ago, Litt located one of these two books, which were printed on cloth nearly 250 years ago, in the storerooms of the National Library in Jerusalem. Did the Stadtholder leave the book on his seat when he got up to leave? What was scribbled in Dutch on the last page? And why was this scribble erased? Why are there traces of one of the pages being singed? How did the book make its way to the National Library? All of these matters are still shrouded in mystery.

Read the article on Ha'aretz

Poland -- Aleksander Hassidim

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

An article in the Jerusalem Post  by Levi Cooper gives fascinating background on the Aleksandrow Hassidim, who still make pilgrimages to the small town of Aleksandrow Lodzki to visit the grave of the founding Aleksander rebbe, Rabbi Yehiel Dancyger (1828-1894), and his sons. In January 2010, more than 300 Aleksander Hassidim traveled to the town to mark the 100th anniversary of Yehiel's son, Rabbi Yerahmiel Yisroel Yitzhok. The only physical traces left in the town are the cemetery and the former residence of Yehiel's grandson, Rabbi Yitzhak Menahem Dancyger (1879-1942), who was killed in Treblinka.

Rabbi Yehiel requested not to be accorded any rabbinic title and asked his followers not to place notes with requests on his grave as is traditionally done with a hassidic master. Aleksander Hassidim, therefore, bring such notes to the grave, read them out and then, in accordance with the wishes of Rabbi Yehiel, they do not place them on the grave. Rather, they place them on the nearby grave of Rabbi Heynech.

The article traces the complex history of the dynasty and describes the situation today, with centers in Israel and the U.S.

Read full story HERE

UK -- More on London's East End

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Here's another detailed travel story (in Jewish Week) about London's former Jewish quarter, the East End. The author, Stephen Burstin, conducts Jewish themed tours. For more information, click HERE

The oldest surviving synagogue in England, Bevis Marks, today straddles the border between the East End and the city’s financial district. Founded in 1701 primarily by Dutch Jews whose descendants had fled the Spanish Inquisition, it is Sephardic. Its original interior is perfectly intact, including the beautiful Renaissance-style ark.

Bevis Marks boasts several famous sons, most notably the 19th-century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, whose father turned his back on Judaism and converted the family to Christianity when Benjamin was 12. This did not stop an Irish member of Parliament from later insulting the young politician’s Jewish roots. But Disraeli famously retorted: “Yes, I am a Jew. But while the right honourable gentleman’s ancestors were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.”

Many sites in the East End continue to provide reminders of the neighborhood’s rich Jewish heritage; at one time Jews made up 95 percent of the population. There’s the soup kitchen that served 5,000 meals a day during the Depression years; now, paradoxically, its retained ornate facade provides a frontage to luxury apartments. Across Commercial Street in revitalized Spitalfields, $1.5 million homes vie with each other to maintain the best-kept Jewish secrets from unknowing passers-by.

Poland -- Restoration Work Completed on pre-war Private Synagogue in Bedzin

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Restoration work has been completed on a richly decorated private Jewish prayer room in Bedzin, in southern Poland. The so-called Mizrachi synagogue, believed to date from the mid-1920s, is located in a building at ul. Potocki 3 in the former Jewish quarter.  It was used by the members of the Mizrachi religious Zionist organization. The founder was probably the owner of the entire building, a man named Wiener, who was active in the movement.

The prayer room will be opened to the public in the spring.

The Bedzin town web site has a slide show of pictures showing the completed work -- you can view it  HERE

There are also a lot of pictures on Wiki commons of the "before" condition

Photo (c) Leszek Maszczyk

The photographer Jono David has also posted four dozen pictures documenting the poor state of the synagogue when renovation began and then the  painstaking process of restoration. You can see them HERE

It is the second private prayer house in Bedzin to be restored recently. The other is under the care of a private organization called Cukierman's Gate.  I have posted about them in the past HERE.

Kosovo -- Jewish cemetery vandalized

Photo from http://www.kurir-info.rs

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Vandals have descerated the recently restored  Jewish cemetery in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, by scrawling anti-Semtic slogans and swastikas on the tombs. Officials condemned the desecration, and police are investigating.

The Associated Press reports:

In June, a group of students from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and their peers from the American University in Kosovo restored the neglected cemetery by clearing debris from around the graves and cutting overgrown grass.

Rabbi Edward S. Boraz of the college's Roth Center for Jewish Life held a dedication ceremony at the memorial site, with students taking turns to read out the names of Jewish families from the region who perished during World War II.

On Thursday the hate graffiti "Jud Raus" — a misspelling of the German "Juden Raus," which means "Jews out" — could still be seen at the foot of a memorial.

President Atifete Jahjaga and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci condemned the act.

"The damaging of cemeteries presents an act in complete contradiction with the traditions and values of the people of Kosovo, based on tolerance and full respect for all the dead and all the monuments," Jahjaga said in a statement.

Thaci described the desecration as "a cowardly act."

Read full article HERE