"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Germany's biggest synagogue reopening

BERLIN-Werner Bab remembers going with his father to Berlin's Rykestrasse Synagogue in the 1930s,soon after the Nazis came to power-a time,he says,when all the talk among the Jews at Sabbath services centered on politics and how to get out of Germany."But what most impressed me as a little boy was the sheer size of the building,"says Bab,an 82-year-old survivor of the Auschwitz death camp.The synagogue, Germany's biggest Jewish temple and architectural landmark, eopens Friday after more than a year of work to restore its prewar splendor.Its interior,which seats up to 1,074 people, was allowed to deteriorate for decades because it sat in communist-run East Berlin,where concern and maintenance funds for houses of worship were in short supply from an atheistic government.The red brick facade appears modest in comparison to the huge prayer hall that can be seen only as one enters a courtyard behind the entrance building in the now trendy Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood.The synagogue, built in 1904,was set on fire during Kristallnacht-the Night of Broken Glass on Nov. 9,1938, when the Nazis attacked synagogues and Jewish businesses.But since it was in a densely populated neighborhood, authorities quickly doused the flames.Sources differ on what happened to the synagogue next. Some say the Nazis made it a horse stable, others say it was used to store textiles. In any case, the synagogue was not as badly damaged as other Jewish prayer houses and was reinaugurated in 1953.Ruth Golan,the architect in charge of the restoration, said she and her partner,Kay Zareh,tried to restore the original appearance by studying the few pictures that remain from the synagogue's opening in 1904."We used scalpels to take off layer after layer from the ceiling to restore the original paintings,"said Golan,who was born in Jerusalem but has spent most of her adulthood in Germany."Unfortunately, because of the limited budget,some of the ornaments could not be restored."The building's facade and roof were renovated in 2000 for about $4 million,which was paid for by the city.The $3.7 million spent on the interior's restoration came from a city-owned lottery.The celestial blue dome with its gold-colored stars above the altar was restored to its former beauty. But most stained glass windows were redesigned in a modern style with excerpts from Genesis in Hebrew and German....
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