(Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Eric Colban, director of the National Minorities Department in the Secretariat of the League, left yesterday for Poland.
It was stated that during his stay Mr. Colban will study the question of the Jewish population in the country.
FREE SYNAGOGUE SPONSORS EXCAVATION OF OLDEST OF KNOWN SYNAGOGUES
What promises to be one of the most important and interesting archaeological finds of recent years will be made by an expedition to excavate the synagogue of Chorazin, the oldest synagogue in Palestine of which there is any knowledge, according to an announcement made today by the Free Synagogue, under whose auspices the work will be conducted.
The city of Chorazin, now known as Kerazeh, located in Upper Galilee, only two miles from Capernaum, contains one of the most famous synagogues built in Palestine immediately after 135, Christian era, when Roman persecution drove the rabbis to the province of Galilee, when Hadrian turned Jerusalem into a Roman colony and built a temple of Jupiter on the site of the Jewish temple.
The Free Synagogue, whose leader is Dr. Stephen S. Wise, is financing the expedition at the instance of Dr. J. L. Magnes, Chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Professor Garstand, Curator of the British Archaeological Museum in Palestine, will supervise the work, with the assistance of Dr. Leo Mayer, of the Department of Antiquities of the Oriental School in Jerusalem.
The synagogue at Chorazin is supposed to conform to the general specifications of similar synagogues erected at that time, that is, rectangular with the door to the south, and two rows of columns forming aisles east and west. The architecture is a peculiar imitation of classic style attributed by architects to the early part of the second century of the Christian era.
Chorazin stands on a rocky spur 900 feet above the Sea of Galilee, two miles north of the shore. In the middle of the ruins are the remains of the synagogue, built of black basalt.
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