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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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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.