Thursday, August 02, 2007
The Hurva Returns
Well, I have to apologize for my cynical skepticism regarding the rebuilding of the Hurva Synagogue!
Yesterday, I went with my daughter to the Old City to give her a junior archeology tour of some of the Old City’s features: the Ottoman walls surrounding the city, the bullet holes over the Jaffa Gate, the ramparts, the various architectural styles, the Cardo, the Ramban Synagogue, etc.
After we came up from the Kotel, we sat in the square of the Jewish Quarter eating popsicles, an important part of a summer day in Israel. I raised my eyes in the direction of the Hurva, and realized that the its ersatz arch was not in my field of vision as it had always been when I sat in that place. Instead, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, was a dark gray, concrete structure that looked like the old Hurva!
Apparently, after all the dispute over what the rebuilt Hurva should look like, when the Israeli government allocated 6.2 million dollars for its reconstruction, it announced that the new Hurva would be a “version of Assad Effendi’s 19th-century design”. The question that comes to mind is, what does “a version” mean? Will it look like the Hurva? If its design is modified, why? Bearing in mind that the Hurva was one of the tallest structures in the Old City, and by extension, in Jerusalem, will it re-assume its proportions again, or will the new Hurva be a miniature version of the old one? Will the Muslims protest its height, feeling that the Al-Aksa Mosque must rise above it? Will the Israeli government give in to their demands pre-emptively or after negotiations?
The architect for the project is Jerusalem’s own Nahum Meltzer. I like his perspective. Meltzer said that he feels, “both out of respect for the historical memory of the Jewish people and out of respect for the built-up area of the Old City, it is fitting for us to restore the lost glory and rebuild the Hurva Synagogue the way it was.” Unbelievable!
The rebuilding of the Hurva is an event that has been celebrated by veteran Yerushalmis who remember the synagogue’s former glory, such as Rabbi Menachem Porush, who said at a commemorative ceremony that he was “overjoyed at the realization of a dream he never forgot--to see the Hurva rebuilt”.
At the ceremony, the gedolei Yisrael, including Rav Eliyashiv, appointed Rabbi Simcha HaKohen Kook, rabbi of Rehovot, as the official rabbi of the Hurva Synagogue.
Rabbi Tanchum Shlomo Burton hails from Brooklyn, New York, where he was a graduate of the Rabbi Isaac Elchonon Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University; he also studied in Gruss Kollel under Rabbi Dovid Miller, shlit"a. A teacher, writer and practicing psychotherapist, Rabbi Burton holds a Master's Degree in Social Work from Yeshiva University. Besides for his work at Torahlab, he teaches in numerous yeshivot and seminaries in Jerusalem and considers it his greatest privilege to do so. He and his wife and family reside in Har Nof, Jerusalem.
