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85 years after Kristallnacht, Germany to begin rebuilding grand synagogue in Hamburg
(JTA) — More than 80 years after one of Germany’s most prominent synagogues was destroyed on Kristallnacht, the Jewish community of Hamburg has taken ownership of the building’s site and is set to begin rebuilding it.
The site of the Bornplatz Synagogue, a neo-Romanesque building dedicated in 1906 that had a 1,200-seat sanctuary and was once the largest synagogue in northern Germany, was officially handed over to leaders of the city’s Jewish community on Wednesday. At the ceremony marking that restitution, officials from the city of Hamburg cut up a copy of the Nazi-era Aryanization document that ordered the demolition of the synagogue.
“We apologize for coming to the decision so late to give them back their property,” Dirk Kienscherf, a local official from the center-left Social Democratic Party, said to representatives of the Jewish community at the ceremony.
The synagogue was burned during Kristallnacht, the series of pogroms in 1938 when Nazis destroyed synagogues and Jewish-owned stores across Germany. Its remains were later forcibly sold to the city and demolished, and an air raid bunker, for use only by Aryans, was built next door. At present, the empty site features a mosaic outlining the synagogue’s architecture, including its vaulted ceilings, that was laid in 1988 by artist Margrit Kahl.
“The Bornplatz Synagoge will rise again and become a monument of remembrance, serving as the visible center for the vibrant Jewish life in our city,” Rabbi Shlomo Bistrizky, a Chabad-Lubavitch movement emissary and chief rabbi of Hamburg, said in a statement.
The quest to rebuild the synagogue, more than eight decades after its destruction, began in the shop of a local antique dealer in the summer of 2020. Daniel Sheffer, an Israeli-born entrepreneur now based in Hamburg, was in the shop when he discovered a silver Torah crown engraved with a dedication to Markus Hirsch, the first rabbi of the Bornplatz Synagogue — which left him feeling “overwhelmed,” he told the Jewish Chronicle.
“But I also felt embarrassed and ashamed and angry, because I was being asked to buy back what was stolen from my ancestors,” he added. “That feeling lasted for days.”
Sheffer eventually bought the crown and brought it with him to more than 50 meetings with public officials and other potential supporters of his campaign, titled “No to antisemitism. Yes to the Bornplatz Synagogue.”
That effort led to the formation of the Initiative for the Reconstruction of the Bornplatz Synagogue, which Sheffer leads. The project secured more than $600,000 in German government funding to conduct a study evaluating the feasibility of rebuilding the synagogue. The construction itself will be funded by the Hamburg municipal government, the German government and private donations.
The pledges of public support for the project came following two more recent attacks on Jews in Germany: the 2019 shooting at a synagogue in the city of Halle, and an attack almost exactly a year later at the Hohe Weide synagogue in Hamburg during Sukkot, in which a Jewish student was seriously injured.
The Torah crown Sheffer bought is now housed at Hohe Weide synagogue. One of the Torah scrolls from the Bornplatz Synagogue, meanwhile, found its way to the United States in 1940 via Italy, rescued by a congregant, Joseph Bamberger. The Torah scroll continued to be used in the synagogues Bamberger and his family attended in Manhattan, and as of 2021, it is in the permanent collection of the city’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.
Some have argued that rebuilding the synagogue would lead the public to forget the atrocities of the Holocaust, while memorials like the one that currently exists in the square are a reminder of the community’s loss and destruction. “The mosaic communicates and commemorates the open wound of the building’s absence, and through it, the absence of what was once one of Western Europe’s most thriving Jewish communities,” Galit Noga-Banai wrote in Haaretz criticizing the reconstruction initiative.
Because of the unusual way the synagogue was destroyed — all of its rubble was pushed into the basement — some surprises have turned up during the excavation process. Those include colorful glass shards from the synagogue’s windows, which give a sense of what the building — whose image has been preserved in black-and-white photos — looked like, Northern German Broadcasting reported.
When the excavation is completed, an architectural competition for the design of the new synagogue will be held, and the bunker standing next to the synagogue will be demolished.
“This moment today is a turning point for our Jewish history in Hamburg,” Sheffer said, according to a local radio station. “It is the victory of justice and Jewish life in Hamburg over the barbarism of the Nazis.”
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The post 85 years after Kristallnacht, Germany to begin rebuilding grand synagogue in Hamburg appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire
Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.
Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.
Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.
Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”
As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.
“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.
Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.
The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.
Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.
Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.
Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.
The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.
“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.
Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.
The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.
In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.
“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.
“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.
In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.
“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”
31 años del atentado a la AMIA – DAIA. 31 años sin justicia.
El 18 de julio de 1994, un atentado terrorista dejó 85 personas muertas y más de 300 heridas. Fue un ataque brutal contra la Argentina, su democracia y su Estado de derecho.
Desde la DAIA, seguimos exigiendo verdad y… pic.twitter.com/kV2ReGNTIk
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) July 18, 2025
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns
Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak
The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.
Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.
With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.
The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.
Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.
Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.
According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.
With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.
In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.
The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.
Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.
The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.