Zaporzhye’s Jews Celebrate Return of Synagogue

The Jewish community of Zaporozhye, Ukraine, celebrated a milestone in the city’s Jewish renaissance with the dedication January 12 of a central synagogue and community center.

Jewish life is flourishing in this major Ukrainian city situated 370 miles southeast of Kiev. It is the sixth largest city in Ukraine, and its Jewish community is a member of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS. But until now it was the only one among the six without its own central synagogue.

Rabbi Nachum Ehrentrau, Zaporozhye’s chief rabbi, entreated the government to return the synagogue—the place where Nazi troops ordered the city’s Jews to report to before transporting them to their deaths—to the local Jewish community. With the government’s cooperation and the support of two local philanthropists, Arthur Abdinova and Igor Butler, the synagogue was renovated and restored to her former glory.

Since the arrival a decade ago of Rabb Ehrentrau, the city’s Jews—now numbering an impressive 20,000—have begun to benefit from the development of a full-fledged Jewish community. Rabbi Ehrentrau established a charity center and soup kitchen to support indigent seniors; a children’s orphanage, and the city’s first Jewish school. The Or-Avner Chabad Lubavitch Day school is in fact the city’s first private school accredited by the Ukrainian Education Ministry and is widely regarded as the best school in the city.

Zaporozhye, a picturesque city featuring two double decker bridges over the Dnepr, enjoys a strong industrial, engineering and academic infrastructure. It boasts one of the longest Children’s Railways, and a seven mile avenue—Lenin Avenue—the longest in all of Europe.

Named “Giymat Rose” for the donors’ mothers, the new center will become a hub of Jewish activity, social and education programs and community events. The synagogue will host daily and Shabbat prayer services.

Rabbi Ehrentrau, who recently persuaded city authorities to erect a monument to the twenty thousand Jewish victims of the Holocaust, says it is, ultimately, the flowering of Jewish life in the new synagogue and community center that serves as the most enduring memorial to the Jews who once lived here.