Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Russian philanthropist Lev Leviev were amongst the hundreds of people who attended the reopening of the renewed “Yeshua Tova – Teiferet Dov” Synagogue in Bucharest last Wednesday.

It was the first time since before WWII that the Romanian capital hosted an event which held such significance for the country’s 12,000 Jews.

Amar inaugurated two Torah Scrolls, with one of them dedicated to the 400,000 Jews who were murdered by the Nazis in both Romania and the territories occupied by Hungary during the Holocaust.

Over the last decade the reopened synagogue has been used mainly for the services held by the Lubavitch representative to Romania, Rabbi Naftali Deutsche.

The event was followed by a gala reception attended by religious and secular personalities from Israel, United States, England, France, Belgium and Bulgaria, as well as international diplomatic representatives and Romanian authorities.

EJP