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Jews in Marseille Will Pray on Yom Kippur in Synagogue Used by Germans As Stable

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Reconstruction of the local synagogue damaged a year ago when the Germans placed a bomb in the handsome old edifice which blew out one wall and shattered the stained glass windows was completed here today in time for you Kippur services.

Workmen have been rushing the repair work since the liberation of the city by the Allies. Piles of debris and workmen’s scaffolding still remained against the boarded up windows when Lt. Morris Kertzer of Iowa City, a U.S. Army chaplain, opened the Rosh Hashanah services in the presence of 500 Marseille Jews and visiting Jewish soldiers. The worshippers were greeted in the name of the Allied troops by Jewish soldiers. The worshippers were greeted in the name of the Allied troops by Capt. Frank Steinitz of Chicago, U. S. Army Medical Corps. During their occupancy of Marseille, the Germans used the synagogue building for a stable, but surprisingly enough left the valuable library and the Scrolls of Law intact.

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