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Egypt approves $2.2 million plan to renovate ancient synagogue

Egypt's Ministry of State of Antiquities has announced plans to renovate the Eliyahu Hanavi (Prophet Elijah) Synagogue in Alexandria at the cost of some $2.24 million, the head of the Department of Coptic and Islamic Antiquities, al-Saeed Helmy Ezza, told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The synagogue, which was built in 1850, was forced to close its doors after part of the ceiling over the women's prayer section collapsed several months ago.

Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria, Egypt

The renovation, according to Ezza, will include an architectural restoration of the structure and will begin as soon as the ministry's board of directors approves the project. Ezza said that although the law stipulates the Jewish community should bear the full cost of the renovation, it was decided to allocate to the project 40 million Egyptian pounds (2.2 million USD).

When the synagogue was built in the 19th century, Alexandria had a magnificent Jewish community. As late as the 1930s, it numbered more than 20,000 Jews. These days, however, the community consists of only 18 registered Jewish members. It is trying its best to maintain the synagogue and help any of its members who are in need.

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Survivors of death trains, ghetto and porgroms in Romania finally recognized

Holocaust survivors from the city of Iași in Romania are finally eligible for reparations, Claims Conference President Julius Berman announced Wednesday. Some 15,000 Jews were murdered in the pogroms in Iași in 1941. Some of those who survived the pogrom were forced to board train cars, where they were locked for days. As the train made its way slowly from town to town, many of the Jews died of suffocation, dehydration and having lost their minds. The Jews who remained in Iași, which is in northeastern Romania, had to live under curfew inside an open ghetto in a designated part of the city. They were under constant threat of being expelled to labor camps and suffered violence and cruelty at the hands of both German and Romanian soldiers.

Jews in Iași in 1941 (Courtesy of Indiana University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

In addition to monthly stipends for the survivors from Iași, who haven't received any reparations so far, the Claims Conference has recently negotiated with Germany additional benefits for Holocaust survivors.

Among these benefits is an increase in the 2018 budget for nursing care at home for survivors from $399 million to $462 million. Furthermore, the requirements have been eased for eligibility for stipends among survivors who had to hide or live under a false identity during World War II. So far, only those who lived under these conditions for six months or more were eligible for reparations, but now some 1,000 additional survivors who lived under these conditions for 4-6 months will be eligible as well. Finally, those who received a one-time payment at a lower sum than what is paid today will be eligible for payment from the Claims Conference.

Jews in Iași in 1941 (Courtesy of Indiana University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

According to the Claims Conference, since 1952, Germany has paid $70 billion in direct compensation to some 600,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors across the world. Some 40 percent of that sum (about $28 billion) were paid to survivors living in Israel. These reparation payments continue to this very day.

One of the survivors from Iași is 83-year-old Koka Palmon. "Without the help of the Romanians, the Germans wouldn't have known where the Jews were hiding, and they (the Romanians) enjoyed carrying out these pogroms. If they hadn't cooperated, the killing would not have been to this extent," she told Ynet. "The Romanians are the one who set the flames using German hands, and it is a mitzva to take every penny. They took enough, they looted and killed, so we shouldn't be acting like we're asking for charity."

Palmon, who was born in 1934 in Iași, told her story for the first time a year ago, when she was crowned the runner up in the Holocaust Beauty Queen contest. It was only then, with a microphone in her hand and facing an audience of dozens of people, including members of her family, that she first recounted the horrors she had endured.

Koka Palmon

"I didn't say anything (before) because I didn't want to remember, and I didn't want to hurt my children. But since I started talking about it, I've been giving talks and lectures on it," she said. The day the pogroms started, she recounted, her father left home to open up the family-owned restaurant, so Palmon's mother went to look for her husband. "They hid him there, but the property owner decided if she couldn't hide her own husband, then my mother couldn't either. And so people were taken out of the basement where they were hiding, and my father had to go to the police station," Palmon said. "On the way there, the policemen hit him with a rubber baton. They hit and shot other people too. My father, who was quick, ran and made his way through the crowd, and then lied down on a pile of dead people, playing dead himself," she continued, visibly emotional. The next day, she said, "the order came to take everyone who lived to a stock rail car, and they closed the cars with bars so there wouldn't be much air left," she added with a pained look on her face. "My father would urinate into his hand and drink it. That's how he survived."

Her father also tried to trade his gold wedding ring for some water, "but the soldier took the ring and brought the water to the window, out of reach for my father, and when my father asked for the water, the soldier shot his hand, and the bullet went right through," Palmon went on to say.

Jews in Iași in 1941 (Courtesy of Indiana University and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

"When my father returned home, he looked like a scarecrow. I didn't recognize him and fled from him. For a while, after he recovered, he was taken to do hard labor, as did my mother, and I would go with her," she recounted. "When the Russians started bombing, a bomb fell right on our house and we lived for half a year inside a basement with no food or water. When my mother took me out to get bread, I remember an SS officer walked by us and punched me hard right where my yellow Star of David was, and I fainted. People started gathering around him, and he fled, because he was afraid he'd be lynched," she continued. "These stories are just part of my suffering in life." After miraculously surviving the Holocaust, Palmon made aliyah to Israel, where she lived with her family at the height of the austerity period. She now has four children, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. "You can't quantify the suffering of survivors who lived in fear they would be caught or exposed as Jews, which meant an immediate death sentence," said Claims Conference chief Greg Schneider. "The survivors who lived under these conditions, even for a few months, deserve the recognition these payments bring with them." "The horrors experienced by the Jews of Iași have finally been recognized, after more than 70 years," added the head of the Claims Conference's negotiations team, Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat. "These survivors went through incomprehensible suffering and, for those who are still with us, we were able to achieve a certain measure of justice after all of these years."

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Study finds cancer rates higher among Holocaust survivors

Hungary set to remove 'anti-Semitic' Soros posters

An online statement issued by the Hungarian government said that a campaign aimed at the Jewish billionaire George Soros will be coming to an end on Saturday, raising speculation that the move was connected with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming visit to the country.

Posters were on display in Hungary's streets showing the Hungarian-born Jewish emigre laughing, with the caption: "Let's not let Soros have the last laugh". Some have been daubed with graffiti such as "Stinking Jew". 

Hungarian government poster portraying financier George Soros and saying 'Don't let George Soros have the last laugh' (Photo: AFP)

The caption is a reference to government claims that Soros, who has donated billions to rights groups around the region, wants to force Hungary to allow in migrants. The posters are the fourth media blitz this year by the rightwing government of populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban to trumpet its fight against migration, Brussels and Soros. Launched at the start of July, the huge images were splashed across billboards as well as tram and bus stops across the country.

Photo: Reuters

After some of the posters were defaced with offensive graffiti, Hungary's largest Jewish organisation Mazsihisz called on Orban to remove them. Soros, 86, called the imagery "anti-Semitic" in a rare statement Tuesday.

Government officials insisted the campaign was not about Soros's background but informing Hungarians about the security risks posed by his alleged support for mass immigration.

Photo: AP

In a reply to Mazsihisz, Orban accused the "billionaire speculator" of wanting to "settle a million migrants" in the European Union, something Soros called "disinformation".

Orban also urged Hungarian Jews to help him "fight against illegal migration" which he said "imports anti-Semitism" into Europe.

Photo: Reuters

Earlier Tuesday a Hungarian news site cited an unidentified source in Orban's Fidesz party as saying that the government wanted to avoid potential embarrassment before Netanyahu arrives.

The country's position on the Soros posters has created confusion ahead of his visit, the first by an Israeli premier since communism ended in 1989.

Photo: Reuters

After Israel's ambassador initially condemned the campaign, the Israeli foreign ministry—reportedly at Netanyahu's request—issued a separate "clarification" that criticism of Soros was legitimate.

While Israel "deplores" anti-Semitism, Soros "continuously undermines Israel's democratically elected governments by funding organizations that defame the Jewish state and seek to deny it the right to defend itself", a statement said.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Photo: AP)

Despite the fact that the Hungarian government said it would be ending the campaign saturday, it also denied it was doing so prematurely as a result of Netanyahu's visit in three days, a report said in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

According to the report, a government spokesman said that the campaign would end as scheduled, regardless of Netanyahu’s visit.

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WATCH: Jerusalem Great Synagogue Choir sings 'Jerusalem of Gold' in Paris

The celebrations for the 50 year anniversary to the unification of Jerusalem may have ended in Israel, but Diaspora Jews are still celebrating.

Last month, 14 members of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue Choir, with me among them, went out on tour in France and Germany with cantor and conductor Eli Jaffe to mark half a decade of a united Jerusalem.

The first major stop on the tour was at the Paris's Grande Synagogue de la Victoire, which is considered one of the biggest synagogues in the world. There are close to 2,000 seats in this beautiful synagogue, which was founded in Paris's 9th arrondissement in 1873.

The neoclassic de la Victoire, which stands 26 meters (85 feet) high and extends 44 meters (144 feet) wide, looks more like a cathedral than a synagogue. The wealthy banking family Rothschild has been praying there for many generations, frequenting it to this very day, along with other prominent Jewish families in the city.

The synagogue also has an important Israeli connection. "The idea to establish a state in the Land of Israel began here, in 1894, when Theodor Herzl visited Paris as a journalist," the synagogue's president, Jacques Canet, told Ynet.

"He wanted to meet the synagogue's president, Gustave de Rothschild, after Rothschild bought lands in Rishon Lezion and Zikhron Ya'akov. Three years later, Herzl came up with the idea of holding a Congress in Basel."

 

The choir performs at the Grand Synagogue in Paris (Photo: Aline Azaria)

 

Ahead of the concert, the choir gathered at a nearby synagogue for final rehearsals along with cantors Shmuel Shapiro and Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, the latter considered one of the greatest cantors of our generation. The Paris synagogue's own cantor, Aron Hayoun, also took part in the concert along with the local synagogue's choir.

On the day of the concert, just as we were about to leave the hotel, sirens filled the air. A police officer was attacked by a terrorist at Notre-Dame Cathedral, a short walking distance from the synagogue.

France as a whole, and particularly the capital Paris, has been on high alert following the series of major attacks carried out by Islamists in the country in recent years, which claimed the lives of some 240 Frenchmen and women within two years.

But the synagogue's rabbi, Moshe Sebbag, is not worried. "The Jewish community feels safe here," he said, noting the Jews in Paris are not afraid to walk on the street or take their children to school. "Community life continues freely here."

The choir performs at the Grand Synagogue in Paris (Photo: Aline Azaria)

With security arrangements outside the synagogue complete, the audience—including ministers, parliamentarians, rabbis and many other public figures—settled in their seats.

During the concert, choir members joined the cantors in singing songs about Jerusalem, and the audience rewarded them with roaring applause. At the end of the concert, conductor Eli Jaffe received a heavy tome detailing the history of the synagogue with a dedication from the synagogue's president and rabbi. 

 

The next day, the choir took the fast TGV train, making the 600 km (370 miles) trip from Paris to Frankfurt in less than four hours. It was still a great time for the choir members to get some sleep before the second concert—a KKL-JNF event at the Westend Synagogue, the main house of prayer for the Jewish community in the city. Five hours later, the synagogue was packed to the rafters. In the audience was Frankfurt's mayor, who is considered very pro-Israel. How pro-Israel? He proudly wore a pin of the Israeli flag alongside Germany's flag on the lapel of his jacket. KKL-JNF donation boxes were everywhere, as the audience joined in to say the Prayer for the Welfare of the State of Israel and sing the Israeli national anthem as well as songs by Naomi Shemer. When the choir joined cantor Yoni Rose for "Jerusalem of Gold," all levees broke with the outpouring of emotion in the room, even among those who don't really understand the words. When a Jew hears the word "Jerusalem," he can't help but feeling a lump in his throat.

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'I was unable to defend one Jewish woman - my own mother'

He is regarded a best-selling writer, commentator, award-winning journalist and the head of several non-profit organizations, including the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, which he also founded. But the most important thing the American Dr. Mike Evans lives and works for is the State of Israel.

In an exclusive interview with Ynet, he tells of what led him to become one of the most widely-heard voices speaking out in favor of Israel on the international stage, effectively devoting his life to the State of Israel.

Owens, 70, the writer of 71 books, is an evangelist Christian and a well-known figure in the United States. He was born to a Jewish mother and Christian father, but was brought up to be a devout Christian who suffered continual abuse from his anti-Semitic father.

“My mother was Jewish. She came from an orthodox family, whose parents arrived from Eastern Europe and Belarus,” he says. “Her grandfather was Rabbi Michael Katzenelson. She herself didn’t like Christians, and when I was four she told me Christians had killed Jews, that Jesus is dead and there’s no need to resurrect him, and that the pope and Hitler too were Christians. But she married my father, who was a Christian, and had seven children with him.

“My father came from the conservative south. He raised us as Christians. He used to go to church, but he was a hypocrite too. On Friday evenings he would get drunk, and when he’d come home, he would beat up my mother, calling her a Jewish whore, and say I was not his son but rather a bastard, an illegitimate Jewish offspring. He therefore never called me ‘son,’ he never loved or hugged me. Instead he abused me.”

Owens meets with Shimon Peres and Pope Francis

 

The young Mike feared for his life. “My goal in life was to reach age 20, since I was sure my father was going to kill me before that. When I was 11, he attempted to kill me for trying to defend my mother. That was the only time. I had never defended her while he was beating her up. But that time I said ‘Stop it,’ and he chased me, choked me, and when I looked in his eyes, I knew I was going to die. That I was never going to be 20. I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the night. I threw up on myself and fainted, and when I opened my eyes a few hours later, I was angry I was still alive.

"I remember that anger. I prayed angrily in the dark: God, why was I born? It didn’t make any sense. I was a small, broken child. And that was when I realized it, the moment I had said that. I was born to defend the Jewish people. That’s the night I arrived at that realization.”

Owens at the Western Wall

Ever since then, Owens has been devoting his life to Israel. He is regarded an important lobbyist in the international arena, he has met American presidents, heads of state, and the pope. “I was unable to defend one Jewish woman - my own mother. It’s true I was unable to defend her, but that pain became my strength.”

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