Ruined but not condemned: Beirut's oldest synagogue stands abandoned and silent between a gridlock of highway traffic and construction noise, but at least its preservation as a historic building appears, for now, assured. (Photo by Anarchorev via Flickr)
It's a gorgeous structure on Beirut's Wadi Abu Jmil Street in the central building district, smothered there by mammoth construction projects and a tawdry parking lot, its red-tile roof virtually sheared, its yellow facade shredded by neglect, its windows now gouges into emptiness. But it's there nevertheless--the Magen Abraham Synagogue, symbol of Lebanon's once-vibrant, now vanished, Jewish community.
A generation or two ago there were some 14,000 Jews in Lebanon, many more before that. They're almost all gone now, chiseled off Lebanon's sectarian diversity like the Hebrew inscriptions that once adorned the synagogue itself: Bigotry doesn't just injure and kill. It erases, too.
Earlier this month rumors whispered that the building was about to be destroyed. Not just rumors. News reports in the Israeli press, too. Haaretz, the English-language daily, reported that buildings nearby were being destroyed as part of the central district's continuing renovation by Solidere, the mammoth construction company partly controlled by the Hariri family. The same Hariris whose billionaire patriarch and construction mogul was Rafik Hariri, the late Lebanese prime minister and victim of assassination by Syria in February 2005. Hariri's fortune and brilliance at greasing the right pockets, his included, had almost singlehandedly rebuilt central Beirut after the civil war. His death didn't quiet the bulldozers.
"Solidere," Haaretz reported earlier this week, "has said that it is working to preserve many buildings in the heart of Beirut, including the three buildings surrounding the synagogue. The company said it submitted an opinion to the high council for urbanization saying that the buildings should be preserved, but the council has allowed the landowners to demolish the buildings as long as the original front is reconstructed."
The Daily Star in Beirut was quick to put the rumor of destruction to rest on Wednesday: "The synagogue and the plot of land on which it stands belong to the members of the Jewish Lebanese community, and they will decide what to do with the site, Solidere public relations officer Nabil Rached told The Daily Star on Wednesday. Like other religious edifices in the city center, the synagogue will be renovated by the relevant religious community when it decides to do so, he added.
"The preservation of the synagogue falls within the important objective of the Beirut city center reconstruction master plan to conserve the places of worship of the various religious communities, as well as heritage buildings and archaeological sites," Solidere said in a statement. "In reviving Beirut's city center, Solidere upholds as one of its main principles a full commitment to keeping the heart of the capital as the symbol of union between, and congregation for, all Lebanese from all religious denominations."
In Lebanon, however, words sometimes mean more than they can achieve. It's not clear where that Lebanese Jewish community is at the moment, where it's not always safe to admit to one's faith. It's not even clear who owns the building. And the question should be asked: If Solidere is so concerned with the archaeological, cultural and multi-religious revival of Beirut--a commendable objective--why so ponderously and clinically say that the synagogue "will be renovated by the relevant religious community when it decides to do so," as if the Solidere spokesman can't bring himself to utter the words Jewish community? Why, that is, isn't Solidere, which could buy and sell Donald Trump's enterprise many times over, offering itself to renovate the synagogue and chisel back those Hebrew inscriptions in a true sign of union between all Lebanese from all denominations?
Comments