Area of Ancient Shul in Zagreb to Return to Jewish Community

After davening Shacharis at the local Chabad House and speaking at the UFM conference, where he delivered the greetings of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Housing and Construction Minister Rabbi Yitzchak Goldknopf came with his delegation and the Israeli ambassador in the state, Gary Korn, for a meeting with the culture minister of Croatia. The minister oversees matters relating to all the religions in the country, and the purpose of the meeting was to discuss a range of subjects relating to religious life and preservation of Jewish cemeteries in the country.

Rabbi Goldknopf asked the culture minister, as per the request of the local Chabad shaliach Rabbi Pinchas Zaklas, to advance the recognition of the Jewish community buildings and the Jewish cemetery as official religious buildings. This would mean they could receive security from the police. The two ministers also discussed finding a solution for Jewish people who pass away and who, according to the local law, might be exhumed from their graves after 10 years. Rabbi Goldknopf also asked the minister to return the area of the very old shul to the Jewish community. The culture minister agreed to his request, and promised to work toward this end in the near future.

From the Culture Ministry, the chairman of UTJ continued to the cemetery and the memorial for the Holocaust victims at the site where the transports to the death camps departed. He lit a candle and recited Tehillim and mishnayos l’iluy nishmasam. Rabbi Moshe Perlowitz, the Rav of the Bais Yisrael community, said Kel Malei Rachamim.

Rabbi Goldknopf and his delegation then visited the site where the central shul in the city used to stand, and which, as per his request to the Croatian culture minister, will be returned to the Jewish community very soon. The site will be designated as a vibrant Jewish center to benefit the city’s Jewish community.