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Nazis destroyed Munich’s main synagogue in 1938. Parts of it were just found in the city’s river.
BERLIN (JTA) — Alongside Munich’s river, construction workers made a sensational discovery last week: Stone tablets carved with the Ten Commandments from the city’s former main synagogue, which was torn down in the summer of 1938 on Adolf Hitler’s orders.
The find was announced almost exactly 85 years after the building was destroyed.
The object — along with 150 tons of rubble from the synagogue, including parts of columns — had likely lain on the banks of the Isar River since the 1950s, when the company hired to carry out the demolition used the material to shore up a dam.
Workers discovered the material while extending the same river at an artificial lake.
“Last Wednesday, the Munich water works department found stones with some decorations under the water,” Bernhard Purin, director of the Jewish Museum in Munich, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Thursday. “They started their own research, and via Google they found out that the same company that had destroyed the synagogue in 1938 did the renovation work in 1956.”
The city department contacted state landmarks officials, who then called Purin.
“I went with them to the site on Thursday, and it became immediately clear that the broken stones were part of the Great Synagogue,” Purin said. “The first thing I saw was the Tablet of Laws. They saw it as an important piece, so they separated from the rest.”
The city is arranging to transport the stones to a storage area and will continue searching the area for more segments of the synagogue. It will be a hard task: The Ten Commandments alone weigh more than half a ton.
Purin said the museum has many historical photos of the synagogue which will aid the identification of the architectural fragments. “I am hopeful that in a few months we will see that more parts of the Torah Ark are among the stones.”
The find is “quite important to me for two reasons,” he added. “On one hand, the main synagogue was one of the biggest in Germany. And on the other hand, it was a document of the positive Jewish life in Germany in the 1870s to 1933. The broken stones are also a monument for the Holocaust.”
According to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, the Great Synagogue in Munich was the first synagogue that the Nazis destroyed in Germany. On July 8, 1938, Jewish community members were given a few hours’ notice, and volunteers spent that night removing the Torah scrolls and ritual objects.
Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, has said she is delighted at the idea of a fragment being housed inside Munich’s new synagogue, on Jakobsplatz, near the museum. Meanwhile, the city’s Reform community would also like to display part of the historical synagogue, which also was a Reform congregation.
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter said he was very moved by the discovery and that the city plans to secure the objects and return them to the Jewish community.
Also in Munich this week, the Reichenbachstrasse synagogue marked a milestone in its restoration with a ceremony. Built in 1931 and severely vandalized during Kristallnacht in November 1938, the synagogue was restored for use by Holocaust survivors in 1947. In recent years, it had fallen into disrepair, particularly since the opening of Munich’s new synagogue in 2006. The current restoration is an initiative of Jewish community members Rachel Salamander and Ron Jakubowicz.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.