MALAKHOVA, Russia — Shlima Gorinova is among those anxiously waiting the completion of a new synagogue and Jewish community center in the Moscow suburb of Malakhovka after its historical place of worship was burned to the ground.
After Fire, Historic Russian Synagogue Replaced
MALAKHOVA, Russia — Shlima Gorinova is among those anxiously waiting the completion of a new synagogue and Jewish community center in the Moscow suburb of Malakhovka after its historical place of worship was burned to the ground.
Rising on a site provided by the local municipality, the new stone structure will, among other functions, house the Torah scrolls miraculously saved from the destruction of four years ago. According to Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Moshe Tamarin, the community’s rabbi, the building will also include a prayer hall, ritual bath, library, classrooms and offices.
For Gorinova, 85, the most exciting prospect is that the community will again be able to congregate in a permanent space.
In 1928, she and her family moved to Malakhovka, a district visited just one year before by the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, upon his release from Soviet-imposed exile. Gorinova’s family left Odessa, Ukraine, so that her father, Moshe Tabachnik, could open up a kosher bakery near Moscow.
