Israel Matzav: Maimonides synagogue in Cairo being re-dedicated

Maimonides synagogue in Cairo being re-dedicated

When I was in Cairo in 1980, I went with my grandmother, may she rest in peace, to the Maimonides Synagogue, and we could not even enter the building. It was piled with garbage outside, the windows were broken and we were told that it was dangerous to enter the building. A restored Maimonides Synagogue in Cairo will be re-dedicated on Sunday.

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 worshiped 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.

I hope that the synagogue will function as a synagogue. After we couldn't get into the Maimonides synagogue, the tour guides took my grandmother and me to the 'new' synagogue in downtown Cairo. But we were told by the guards standing outside that synagogue with machine guns equipped with machetes that the synagogue only operated on Jewish holidays.

Are there any Jews left in Cairo?

Israel Matzav: Maimonides synagogue in Cairo being re-dedicated