(Jewish Group) Great Synagogue of Vilna, destroyed by Nazis, is uncovered by archaeologists

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

Parts of a Nazi-destroyed synagogue in Lithuania are seeing the light of day again after archaeologists unearthed the religious center’s buried bimah, or central prayer platform, in a recent excavation.

The find is the culmination of a three-year project to excavate the site of what was known as the Great Synagogue of Vilna, a title that comes from an old name for the city of Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

While the Nazis destroyed many synagogues during World War II, the Great Synagogue of Vilna was a tremendous loss, as it had served as the spiritual center of the Jewish community in Vilnius from the 1600s until the 1940s, said Jon Seligman, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority who is leading the international team carrying out the excavations.

The synagogue was burned down during the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944, when most of the tens of thousands of Jews who lived in Vilnius were murdered, Seligman said.

After World War II, when Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, the ruined synagogue was leveled and then built over, first with a kindergarten and later with a primary school. Over the past few years, archaeologists have surveyed the site with ground-penetrating radar, hoping to discover and study remnants of the famous synagogue.

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[pansypoo53219]

1. may have seen a bit of the dig on PBS.

[Mosby]

2. this is really great

The Gaon of vilna is very prominent in the conservative movement, he was a bit of a genius.

[hedda_foil]

3. My daughter who lives in India went me this article yesterday. My grandma's family came from Vilna.

Her dad was a free thinker. That's not why they left, of course. Like so many Jewish immigrants in the late 19th century, they fled the pogroms and forced recruitment into the Czar's army.