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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/15176/full/15176/endangered-european-shuls-get-grants-for-restoration/ <br /><br /> <b>Endangered European shuls get grants for restoration</b> <br /> Friday, March 2, 2001 | by <p>RUTH E. GRUBER </p> <br /><br /><p>BUDAPEST—Threatened historic synagogues in seven countries have received a total of $250,000 in grants to help save them.<br /><br /> Ranging from $10,000 to $70,000, the grants target synagogues in Yugoslavia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Ukraine, plus an archaeological site in Surinam featuring the brick remains of what is said to be the first synagogue of any architectural significance in the New World.<br /><br /> Announced shortly before Chanukah by the World Monuments Fund and the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, the grants also include a commitment from the Lauder Foundation to donate $500,000 over the next five years toward saving sites of Jewish heritage.<br /><br /> The grants are believed to be one of the largest amounts ever awarded to Jewish heritage sites. They represent a milestone in attempts to preserve and protect threatened synagogues and to recognize their cultural and historic value—even in places where Jews no longer live.<br /><br /> The new grants inaugurate the World Monuments Fund's Jewish Heritage Grant Program, a newly enlarged program designed to address urgent preservation needs of historic but endangered sites of Jewish cultural heritage around the world.<br /><br /> "Our remaining synagogues and other Jewish heritage sites, once vital centers of Jewish community life, are, at last, receiving the attention and respect which they deserve," said Lauder, whose foundation also funds Jewish educational activities in more than a dozen countries.<br /><br /> Among the grants was an award of $65,000 for immediate measures to stabilize and protect the synagogue in Subotica, Yugoslavia, built in 1902 and considered one of the finest art nouveau buildings in all of Europe.<br /><br /> Owned by the municipality, the synagogue has stood empty for years—a casualty of the Holocaust, communism and the past decade of war and conflict in Yugoslavia.<br /><br /> Subotica Mayor Jozef Kasza is working on a fund-raising project with the Jewish community under the slogan "SOS Synagogue." He has pledged that the city will match 25 percent of donated funds despite extremely difficult economic conditions.<br /><br /> Other historic synagogues receiving grants include the baroque Choral Synagogue in Slonim, Belarus, built in 1642. It was given $10,000.<br /><br /> Also, the 17th-century synagogue in Boskovice, Czech Republic—whose walls and vaulted interior have elaborate frescoes featuring ornamental and floral motifs and Hebrew inscriptions—was granted $70,000, which will enable completion of full-scale restoration.<br /><br /> And the baroque synagogue complex in Mad, a wine-producing village in northeastern Hungary, built in 1795 and one of the oldest in Hungary, received $40,000. The complex includes the former rabbi's house and yeshiva.<br /><br /> Plus, the synagogue in Pinczow, Poland, built around 1600, was given $30,000. It is one of the first synagogues to include a women's section in its original design and has some of the earliest preserved synagogue wall paintings in Poland.<br /><br /> In addition, the archaeological site featuring the brick remains of the first synagogue of any architectural significance in the Americas received $10,000. The synagogue—at Jodensavanne, Surinam—was originally build by Dutch-Portuguese Jewish settlers around 1700.<br /><br /> Finally, the synagogue at Zhovkva, Ukraine, built in 1692—an example of Eastern European Jewish architecture—got $25,000.</p> <p> </p>

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