Beirut's oldest synagogue may be about to come back to life

For the last 10 days, the residents of a central Beirut neighborhood have been awakened by the sounds of hammering and heavy drilling. Just a few hundred meters from Sarayya al-Hukumi - the Lebanese parliament building - a synagogue is being resurrected.

From dawn to dusk, dozens of laborers, many of them Shi'ites from southern Lebanon, are toiling amid the ruins of the once-magnificent Magen Avraham - the oldest synagogue in the Lebanese capital.
The renovations began last week and will continue for at least a year - provided the Lebanese Jewish Community Council, responsible for the restoration, can raise enough funds to complete the million dollar project. Its Web site reports that the Lebanese Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut Central District (Solidere) is contributing $150,000. Aside from that, it will be relying on donations.
According to the Lebanese daily As-Safir, the renovations were supposed to have started in 2006 but were postponed due to that summer's Second Lebanon War. Earlier, the assassinated ex-prime-minister Rafik al-Hariri had reportedly attempted to rebuild the synagogue.
Magen Avraham was named after Moise Abraham Sasson, a wealthy Jew from Calcutta who donated money for its construction in 1926. During the chaos of the Lebanese civil war between 1975 and 1990, it lay in ruins as the Jewish presence in the country rapidly diminished. There are no more then 200 Jews living in Lebanon today - the last remnants of a vanishing community.
Before the civil war, approximately 22,000 Jews lived in Lebanon and owned 18 synagogues, of which Magen Avraham was the jewel. It served as an important religious and communal center for Lebanese Jews, and was considered to be one of the most beautiful in the whole region.

During World War II, the synagogue became a center of underground Zionist activity and even a temporary shelter for new immigrants who stopped in Beirut on their way to Palestine. But in the civil war, all worship there ceased and the holy books were shipped out of the country. Since then, Lebanese Jews have had to pray in their own homes.
The abandoned building was saved from demolition, as it was classified a historic site. The company responsible for the restoration of downtown Beirut, Solidere, had decided that it was up to each religious sect to restore its own places of worship. The Lebanese government's recent decision to allow the Jewish community to rebuild the synagogue was met with a rare display of consensus among the rival Lebanese parties, including Hizbullah, the Lebanese LBC TV station reported.
A resident of of the Beirut suburb Ain Saade, who spoke to The Jerusalem Post on condition of anonymity, said that "the start of the restoration has a beautiful and meaningful symbolism. The synagogue represents an important part of Lebanon's heritage and society. The restoration of the Magen Avraham is an historic event in terms of reviving the existence of a whole community that Lebanon missed for years without even noticing. I congratulate the Jews of Lebanon. I think Lebanese from all religions and sects welcome this project."
This week, some Lebanese newspapers and television stations reported that Magen Avraham would not serve as a synagogue in the future, and would probably become a public museum. However, the Community Council has denied this. The council states on its Web site that "there is a rumor that the synagogue was going to be made into a museum. It's untrue as the synagogue was and will remain at the heart of the Lebanese Jewish community's religious practices and social-communal activities."

The Jerusalem Post

Aug 13, 2009 21:36

Renovation Of Magen Abraham Synagogue

La plus grande synagogue du Liban sort de l’oubli


Des arcades frappées de l'étoile de David, des inscriptions en hébreu enfouies depuis 30 ans : la synagogue Magen Abraham, l'un des derniers vestiges juifs du Liban, est en pleine rénovation, tout un symbole pour une communauté tombée dans l'oubli, raconte Rana Moussaoui, dans un reportage de l'AFP.Au cœur de Beyrouth, la porte rouillée du temple autrefois dissimulée sous une végétation abondante s'offre désormais aux yeux des curieux, et le toit qui était à moitié couvert de briques a été mis à nu. Des ouvriers ont dégagé l'entrée, ravalé les murs et s'attellent à enlever les monticules de remblai de-ci, de-là. À droite, l'ancien bureau du dernier rabbin, qui a quitté le pays en 1977, après le début de la guerre civile. Au centre, l'entrée qui mène à l'intérieur du temple, où se dressent actuellement de nombreux échafaudages adossés aux arcades.

« Nous sommes exaltés », confie Isaac Arazi, président du Conseil communal juif au Liban. « Nous espérons que cette initiative fera en sorte que la communauté grandisse de nouveau », affirme-t-il.La communauté juive, dont la religion est reconnue comme l'une des 18 confessions au Liban et dont la présence dans le pays remonte à 2 000 ans, s'est réduite au fil des ans. Elle est passée de 22 000 âmes avant la guerre civile à quelque 300 personnes actuellement, selon des estimations non officielles. C'est après l'invasion israélienne du Liban en 1982 que sa présence a considérablement diminué, dans un pays où l'amalgame entre Juifs et Israéliens est courant.Mais la rénovation de Magen Abraham, l'une des plus grandes synagogues du monde arabe, vient redonner espoir à ceux pour qui le Liban reste leur patrie. « Nous nous attendons à ce que les travaux soient terminés dans un an ou 15 mois », souligne M. Arazi, ajoutant : « Si tout se passe bien. » Le Conseil communal juif, qui lance un appel aux dons, se charge de la plus grande partie du financement des travaux qui « vont coûter pas moins d'un million de dollars ». Certains juifs libanais expatriés y contribuent. « Nous voulons la restaurer telle qu'elle était, avec tous les meubles, les tapis et les lustres d'antan », assure M. Arazi.La synagogue Magen Abraham, inaugurée en 1926 dans le secteur de Wadi Abou Jmil, surnommé anciennement « Wadi al-Yahoud » (vallée des Juifs), était devenue un lieu de désolation. Tout a été pillé pendant la guerre : les bancs, les vitres, les dalles et même l'imposant autel en marbre qui trônait au centre. « Nous voudrions bien que ceux qui les ont volés les restituent, car ce sont des choses qui datent de 80 ans », plaide M. Arazi. Des slogans politiques gribouillés sur les arcades et à l'entrée par des miliciens lors de la guerre civile témoignent de l'époque où le temple a été pris sous le feu des violents combats au centre de la capitale.Le responsable de la communauté révèle que l'autre vestige israélite de la capitale, le cimetière juif, va être également rénové. « Les travaux vont commencer en principe la semaine prochaine », dit-il. Les autres synagogues du pays, comme celles de Saïda (Sud) ou d'Aley (sud-est de Beyrouth), où existe le plus ancien temple (1870), devraient également être remises en état, mais après la fin des travaux de Magen Abraham.Selon M. Arazi, aucune communauté religieuse et aucun parti politique, y compris le Hezbollah, n'ont exprimé de réserves concernant le projet initial. Le lieu de culte, toutefois, est sous étroite surveillance, notamment policière.

L'Orient Le Jour
jeudi 13 août 2009

Shula Cohen

Shula Cohen , the true story of a Jewish Lebanese woman living, in the 1940s, in Wadi Abu-Jmil, an area in Beirut that used to gather a big community of Lebanese Jews.

For those of you who never heard of her, Shula Cohen was born in Jerusalem; at seventeen she married a wealthy Beirut merchant, with whom she raised seven children. She became a spy for Israel in Beirut, where her acceptance in Lebanese / Syrian social circles gave her unprecedented access to secret intelligence information.

It started in 1947, on the eve of Israel's war of Independence, when she stumbled on some military intelligence and sent it on to Israel. Immediately, the nascent intelligence services tapped her to smuggle Jewish refugees from Syria across the Lebanese border.
Shula helped thousands of Jews from Syria and Iraq come through Lebanon to Israel. She found escape routes for them by land, sea and air.

In the 1950s, she organized a spy ring based in a Beirut nightclub (Rambo Club), and obtained for the Mossad secret Lebanese and Syrian documents.

She was able to work for fourteen years before she was caught

Shula was arrested and convicted by the Lebanese government in the late 1950s, she spent seven years in prison –where she was repeatedly tortured- and was released in 1967, following the Six Day War as part of a prisoner's exchange.

Amazing that a movie, entitled “Shula Cohen, The pearl”, was playing in cinema theatres in Lebanon.

The reason they allowed it to play is that it distorts the truth and presents Shula as a prostitute/Madam/spy, who slept with high government officials, who gave away young girls to trap important Lebanese personalities; and who smuggled Jewish thieves into Israel.

Because of course, when Jews escape pogroms, it can’t be only to save their lives. In the narrow minded Lebanese mentality, they must be guilty of something. In the movie, the Lebanese Jews are accused of stealing and embezzling money, while escaping; and they are accused of doing a huge damage to the Lebanese economy (!).
In fact, the money they took along was only theirs and their only asset while they left behind lands and houses.

Shula, at the end of the “movie” is shown in prison, as a privileged convict.
The torture scenes are omitted.

Needless to specify that it is an amateur movie with a horrible music background. Costumes are catastrophic. Even the wig of the main actress is of a cheap halloween costume standard.
The acting is a disaster.

This cheap amateur movie was in cinema theatres in Lebanon, while Waltz with Bachir, who has been nominated and has won several important awards, has been banned…

Posting my Passover Seder a bit late...

Thank you Qawer for the Matsot :)

Waltz With Bashir

Waltz with Bashir. by Ari Folman

Because it is forbidden, here in Lebanon, it is more sought-after and therefore one can find it almost everywhere...

I saw it the first time in Paris.

After watching it again, a few days ago, I wondered what got the Christian militias to commit this act. What pushed them to this horror. Why did they choose these victims in specific.
I googled.
From one info to another, from one site to another, I found myself reading on other horrible massacres.

Why haven’t I ever heard of these massacres? Why was it always about Sabra and Chatila?

What about the Karantina and Tel el Zaatar massacre (perpetrated on Palestinian camps too), and what about the Dammour massacre, Dahr al-Wahsh, and October the 13th?
In the name of which selective morality of the Arab press and European press did these other massacres-in which the Israelis had nothing to do- been ignored?

Even when Israelis are mere observer and not directly implicated in a massacre, they are highly judged. This is to confirm their moral superiority, and the high expectation from the public opinion.

But when arabs kill arabs, no one interferes. It is normal. And amnesia hits the press…
Lebanese kill Lebanese, Syrians kill Lebanese, Syrians kill Syrians, Hamas kills Fatah… This, is tolerated. No one asks questions about it. It is in history books.

But Sabra and Chatila is still commemorated in Lebanon.
Go figure.

During the Gaza offensive, at least 620 people were brutally massacred in Congo with axes, bats and machetes in less than three weeks between December and January. Most of them women and children.
Has anyone heard of this? Or the third world doesn’t count…
Africans kill Africans. The world’s attention was too busy judging and focusing on Israelis…