The dream of a Palestinian-born politician from Germany is close to reality.

Riad Salah, who was born in a village near Shechem, wants to rebuild a shul in Berlin.

The German senator and leader of the Social Democratic Party met earlier this week in front of the shul and announced a plan to rebuild the building, which was mostly destroyed during the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938.

Salah’s goal, which was approved by the president of the Jewish community in Berlin, Gideon Yoffe, is to make an unequivocal statement against the growing anti-Semitism in the German capital – and also against discrimination against Muslims.

“If you say you want to support Jewish life in Germany and the city of Berlin and Europe, and you do not just want to pay lip service, then you have to do it in a concrete way,” said Saleh, who immigrated to Germany from the Shomron with his family when he was 5 and now 40.

Saleh proposed the plan last November in a column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This was reported by JTA.

Saleh fought for the plan and at the end of the effort he was supported by the Senate in Berlin.

Gideon Yoffe, who has been president of the Jewish community for 12 years, said, “I never thought that a Berliner with a Palestinian background would help the Jewish community.” Salah was born in a village near Shechem. “I see this as a fantastic story that allows us to look hopefully at the future,” Yoffe added.

Saleh said the project is expected to take several years and cost nearly $30 million. The senator pledged to obtain government and federal funding, as well as raise money from German industry and private donors – including his young sons. Saleh said that each of his children donated 20 euros of their savings money.

Before World War II, some 175,000 Jews lived in Berlin, where there were also many shuls. The original shul could hold up to 2,000 mispallalim. Several years after it was destroyed in the pogrom of 1938, the Jewish architect Barr was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp where he was murdered in 1944.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)