Bahrain Synagogue

Infobox religious building
building_name=Bahrain Synagogue


caption=
location= Sasa'ah Avenue
Flagicon|Bahrain Manama, Bahrain
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religious_affiliation=Orthodox Judaism
rite=Eidut Hamizrach
district=
functional_status=Disused
leadership= Abraham David Nonoo
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Bahrain Synagogue is a located on Sasa'ah Avenue in the lower-class commercial district of Manama, the capital city of the gulf island of Bahrain.cite web
url = http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=1&cid=1159193502421&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
title = Life's good for Jews of Bahrain - as long as they don't visit Israel
accessdate = 2007-06-01
last = Lunxner
first = Larry
date = Oct 23, 2006
publisher = Jpost.com] The nondescript beige structure, which cannot be identified in any way as a Jewish house of worship, is no longer in use. The tiny Jewish community in Bahrain, numbering approximately 35 out of a total population of 700,000, can rarely muster a minyan required for prayer. Nevertheless, Bahrain is the only country in the Persian Gulf with any kind of Jewish community or synagogue. The community also maintains a small Jewish cemetery.cite web
url = http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/bahrain.html
title = The Virtual Jewish History Tour: Bahrain
accessdate = 2007-06-01
last = Scheib
first = Ariel
date =
publisher = Jewish Virtual Library]

History

In the late 19th century, Jews from Iraq, and some from Iran and India settled in Bahrain and subsequently established a synagogue. After the 1947 UN Partition Plan which envisaged partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, three days of protests and marches erupted. On the third day, the demonstrators began rioting.cite web
url = http://www.ohav.org/columns/survival/islandgirl.html
title = Tales of Survival: Island Girl
accessdate = 2007-06-01
last = Rosenbloom
first = Michael
date = March 2002
publisher = Congregation Ohav Sholom, Merrick, New York ] Jewish homes were looted and the only synagogue on the island, in the capital city of Manama, was razed to the ground by foreigncite web
url = http://www.internationalspecialreports.com/middleeast/00/bahrain/23.html
title = The Jews of Bahrain: "I consider myself a Bahraini Jewish Arab - and I am very proud of it."
accessdate = 2007-06-01
last =
first =
date = March 23, 2000
publisher = The Washington Times] Arab rioters. Even though the tensions resulted in Jews emigrating to Britain and the USA, another synagogue was built for those who remained.

Recently, as the synagogue is no longer in use, the Jewish community wanted to convert the building for another use or give it to charity, but the government wouldn't allow it. They insisted it remained as a synagogue.

In 2006 after the roof began to fall in, Abraham David Nonoo, the Jewish community’s unofficial leader and a member of Bahrain’s forty-man shura, or parliamentary council, undertook to renovate the synagogue out of his own funds, although Bahrain's Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa has offered to pay for the construction of a new synagogue on the same site [ [http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article3121184.ece Low profile but welcome: a Jewish outpost in the Gulf] The Independent, 2 November 2007] .

At the time the government also offered the Jewish community a piece of land to rebuild the old synagogue which was destroyed in 1948 and not rebuilt.

ee also

*History of the Jews in Bahrain
*Umm Al Hassam

References

External links

* [http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/030625/2003062528.html Bahrain's crown prince, Shaloum discuss the situations of Bahraini Jews] , (Arabic News.com)