Long-awaited restoration work has begun on the synagogue at Gėlių st. 6 in Vilnius.
The plan includes repairs to the facade as well as to the entry stairs, floors, windows, doors, roof and cupola of the long-disused brick building.
The Lithuanian Department of Cultural Heritage has allocated €43,443 for the renovation , with the Jewish Community of Lithuania providing an additional €4,827, according to the Cultural Heritage Department web site.
The synagogue, one of only two to survive in Vilnius, was built between 1817 and 1833 on the site of a wooden building which once belonged to the merchant Zavel Peisakhovich — it is sometimes called the Zavel synagogue. The synagogue was restored many times and greatly expanded in the second half of the 19th century. It operated until 1940. After World War II it housed storage facilities and apartments, and from 1990 on was abandoned.
According to the Jewish community web site, The synagogue, located near the Vilnius train station, “was once a venue for the preaching of Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky, the grandfather of current Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The synagogue kept extraordinary hours to cater to travelling Jewish merchants who passed through the Vilnius station regularly.”
As we reported last September, the building was first stabilized last year.
See full report (In Lithuanian) about the current restoration work