Free Republic

Eighty-five years after Adolf Hitler ordered the destruction of Munich's main synagogue, construction workers have found rubble from the building in a nearby river.They uncovered columns from the synagogue and a stone tablet showing some of the Ten Commandments.The Jewish community and local figures are delighted with the discovery...There had been no sign of the building since it was torn down in June 1938, after Hitler demanded its removal as an "eyesore". Five months later, Jews, synagogues and Jewish-run businesses were attacked across Nazi Germany in the deadly November pogrom widely known as Kristallnacht...The stone tablet originally came from above...

BERLIN (AFP)--- Germany’s growing Jewish community on Wednesday elected its first female leader, Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor and outspoken critic of the extreme right. She pledged to heal divisions between native Germans and newcomers from the former Soviet bloc. The executive board of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said the 73-year-old Knobloch, who has led the Jewish community in the southern city of Munich since 1985, had won its vote unanimously. Knobloch succeeds Paul Spiegel, a well-liked and respected figure who died in late April at the age of 68 after a long illness. The Council is...