BUDAPEST (JTA) – Four days of events are celebrating the rededication of a historic synagogue in Poland.
Events through May 9 marking the full-scale restoration of the White Stork synagogue in Wroclaw include an inaugural ceremony, concerts, art exhibits, guided tours, religious services and an international conference on Jewish life in the city.
Before World War II, Wroclaw, known in German as Breslau, was part of Germany and Germany’s third-largest Jewish community. A small Jewish community lives there today.
The White Stork synagogue, built in the late 1820s, was the only synagogue in Wroclaw to have survived World War II. Abandoned for many years, it was returned to Jewish community ownership in the mid-1990s.
Restoration work was sporadic until 2006, when the Wroclaw-based Norwegian Jewish singer Bente Kahan established a foundation to spearhead the renovation and promote educational programs about Jewish heritage and culture, and the Holocaust.
