18 May 2007
In the Estonian capital, Tallinn, the first synagogue since the end of World War II has been opened. The original Tallinn synagogue had been built in 1883 and was destroyed in a German bombing raid in 1944. Among the dignitaries attending the opening ceremony were the country’s president Toomas Hendrik Ilves and prime minister Andrus Ansip, Israeli deputy prime minister Shimon Peres and the chief rabbi Yona Metzger.
Much of the funding for the synagogue, which cost approximately US$ 2 million, was provided by two wealthy donors: the Rohr family of New York and Alexander Bronstein, vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, who is of Estonian origin who dedicated the shul to his mother. Alexander Machkevitch from Kazakhstan, president of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, contributed an ornate silver menorah. Shimon Peres cut the red ribbon at the front of new building after the Torah scrolls were brought inside amid music and dancing. "You can burn down a building, but you cannot burn down a prayer. And we are a praying people," Peres said.
Estonia has a population of around 3,500 Jews. Before World War II, there were about 5,000 Jews in the country. In 1940, the Soviet occupation of the Baltic country led to the deportation of hundreds. As war intensified, many fled to the former Soviet Union. Of those that remained, almost all were slaughtered during the Nazi Holocaust. It is believed that fewer than 20 survived. Estonia was the only country in Europe to be declared “judenfrei” (“free of Jews”) by the Nazis. Until the opening of the Tallinn shul, it was also the only country in Europe not to have a synagogue.
