Photo via centralasia-travel.com

Synagogue demolition ends Jewish worship, Protestant church next?

Tajikistan's bulldozing of the country's only synagogue - in the capital Dushanbe - has forced the Jewish community to halt worship and stop its food aid program, reports Mushfig Bayram, Forum 18 News Service. "We do not have a place to hold our worship," Chief Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhmov told Forum 18 News Service. "We also have no place to feed the elderly and the poor."

Faced with the authorities' determination to destroy the synagogue, the community requested that they be allowed to dismantle the building themselves. Rabbi Abdurakhmov commented to Forum 18 that every part of the building is sacred, so "it would be an abomination for the Jewish religion to bulldoze the synagogue." However, "the Chief Engineer came to the site and showed his dissatisfaction with the speed of our work and had the remaining wall bulldozed."

Yusuf Salimov of the Tajik Presidential Administration (which the community has tried to get compensation from) claimed to Forum 18 that he is not aware of the problem. "They should complain to the higher courts," he said. When Forum 18 told him that Jewish community leaders were already discouraged from doing so, thinking that the authorities were indifferent to their plight, he responded: "Let them write to us about it."

The state's next demolition target, as part of a controversial city reconstruction plan, is the Nani-Hayat (Bread of Life) Protestant Church. Church members told Forum 18 they have been given until early July to vacate the building ahead of demolition.

[06/29/2008]

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