Rambam restoration will not lead to dialogue

Bataween
Point of No Return
05 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Dignitaries from all over the world are flooding in for the official inauguration on Sunday of the Maimonides Synagogue in Cairo. Egypt has spent up to $2 m rebuilding it, but does not want its Jewish heritage to be a vehicle for dialogue and 'normalisation' with Israel. The Jerusalem Post reports:

After a year-and-a-half of careful restoration work by the Egyptian authorities, the Maimonides Synagogue in Cairo is set to be rededicated on Sunday.

The 19th-century synagogue and adjacent yeshiva, which stand on the site where Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the Rambam, worked and worshipped more than 800 years ago, was restored by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).

According to the Egyptian press, the restoration of the synagogue is part of a plan by the SCA to restore all the major religious sites in Egypt, including 10 synagogues.

The rededication ceremony will be attended by members of the Cairo Jewish community, the Egyptian diplomatic corps, former Israeli ambassadors and representatives of the state. A group of Chabad Hassidim will also attend the ceremony and help in rededicating the synagogue.

(Read full story)
.