06 November 2006
The first synagogue since World War II is to open in Talinn, the capital of the Baltic country of Estonia, in February 2007. "It is almost finished," the community's spokesman, Rabbi Shmuel Kot, told the "Associated Press". Tallinn's last synagogue was built in 1882 but destroyed in 1944 in air raids when Nazi Germany's troops fled the Soviet Red Army's advance. Some 3,000 Jews live in Estonia, a country of 1.3 million, and most of them reside in Tallinn. Construction of the 200-seat synagogue started in 2005 in downtown Tallinn next to the Estonian Jewish Community center and school. The total cost is estimated at some US$ 2 million and financed mainly by donations.
