Free Republic

The Tel Aviv municipality on Friday reversed an earlier decision to seize the assets of the city’s historic Great Synagogue. On Thursday, the Great Synagogue of Tel Aviv’s president, Shlomo Pivko, announced that the historic house of prayer would be closing, noting that the City of Tel Aviv had seized the synagogue’s bank account to cover back taxes. According to Behadrei Haredim, the synagogue owed a total of 2 million shekels ($550,000), for seven years’ worth of back taxes. While Pivko has raised hundreds of thousands of shekels to help stabilize the synagogue’s finances, he was unable to secure sufficient...

Members of Turkey’s Jewish community attend the reopening ceremony of the Great Synagogue in Edirne on March 26 after a five-year government restoration project. REUTERS Photo Just a week before Passover, Turkish Jews woke up to a morning full of excitement and hope. They got on the buses waiting to take them to Edirne, to the city that their families once had to leave following the Thrace pogroms in 1934. It was the reopening day of the Great Synagogue, which had been left in ruins for decades. “I was the last rabbi that had served in the synagogue,” said David...