By Jerusalem Post
After a year-and-a-half of careful restoration work by the Egyptian authorities, the Maimonides Synagogue in Cairo was rededicated on Sunday.
The 19th-century synagogue and adjacent yeshiva, which stand on the site where Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the Rambam, worked and worshiped more than 800 years ago, was restored by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA).
According to the Egyptian press, the restoration of the synagogue is part of a plan by the SCA to restore all the major religious sites in Egypt, including 10 synagogues.
The rededication ceremony was attended by members of the Cairo Jewish community, the Egyptian diplomatic corps, former Israeli ambassadors and representatives of the state.
A representation from Chabad also attended the ceremony, namely Kfar Chabad Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenasi and Eilat’s Chief Rabbi Yosef Hecht.
Rabbi Andrew Baker, director of international Jewish affairs at the American Jewish Committee, is one of the people responsible for the renovation project.
Baker said that over the past few years he went back and forth from the United States to Egypt and met with state officials to discuss the preservation and future of Egypt’s Jewish sites.
Upon taking on the task, the Egyptians proceeded to carefully renovate the Maimonides Synagogue, known to the community as Rav Moshe.
Baker said that the Egyptians had transformed the structure from an earthquake-damaged, roofless and moldy wreck to a near picture-perfect replica of the synagogue that was built in the 19th century.
The cost of the renovation is estimated at between $1.5 million and $2m.
Rabbi Hecht, who came with 12 men from the Chabad community in Eilat to take part in the rededication, said he had been to Cairo more than 20 times to pray and to close the cycle of readings of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah.
“We were there when we prayed in a pile of rubble and it will be exciting to be there now that it’s restored,” Hecht said.
Some people believe that the synagogue and accompanying yeshiva have miraculous healing powers. The Rambam was a physician and it is believed that those who enter the synagogue may be cured of illness.
Haha, are you kidding? The Egyptian tax payers sponsored a shul?
Not mad… Moshiach is really here…
It was beautiful then. When was it reduced to rubble? They also had a beautiful stone bimah which had an inscription on it that read “the minhag is that here is where Moshe davened when it says “Moshe went out of the city and spread his hands to Hashem”…