Tiferet Yisrael: As beautiful As Cinderella’s Castle & Equally Inauthentic
Sixty visitors toured the synagogue during the 20th annual Batim Mibifnim architectural celebration held on the weekends of Oct. 15-17 and 22-24.
Twelve years after the cornerstone laying ceremony marking the rebuilding of the Old City of Jerusalem’s Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue – dedicated in 1872 and dynamited by Jordan’s Arab Legion in 1948 – the 75-foot-high new/old landmark was toured by 60 visitors during the 20th annual Batim Mibifnim architectural celebration held on the weekends of Oct. 15-17 and 22-24.
The tours – led by architect Carlos Prus, whose firm was responsible for the reconstruction – introduced visitors to the archaeological, architectural and historical issues involved in reconstructing a 150-year-old building. The Argentina-trained architect explained the design reflects the 1872 original rather than the repairs made following the 1927 earthquake.
When the occupancy permit is issued in the indeterminate future, some credit will be due to Brian Sherr, 82, a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., real estate attorney. Growing up in New Jersey, Sherr long dreamed of rebuilding the Hassidic shul erected by his great-great-great-grandfather, Rabbi Nissan Bak (1815-1889).
Sherr’s ancestor fundraised for a decade to build Tiferet Yisrael (the Glory of Israel). On Aug. 19, 1872, after six years of intermittent construction, the house of worship finally opened. Together with the nearby Hurva Synagogue – the city’s main Ashkenazi house of prayer – Bak’s Hassidic shul towered over the Jewish Quarter. On May 28, 1948, in a pivotal moment in Israel’s War of Independence, the Jewish Quarter’s outgunned Haganah fighters surrendered to Maj. Abdallah Tal of Jordan’s Arab Legion. He symbolically ordered the two massive domes to be dynamited.
“Nearly eight decades after it was destroyed, the Tiferet Yisrael synagogue will once again stand out on the skyline of the Old City’s rooftops,” Herzl Ben Ari, CEO of the Jewish Quarter Development Company (JQDC), told Atlanta Jewish Times. The JQDC received NIS 60 million in 2019 for the reconstruction of Tiferet Yisrael.
Speaking in 2014, then-Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat declared: “Today, we lay the cornerstone of one of the important symbols of the Jewish community in Jerusalem. The Municipality attaches great importance to the preservation and restoration of heritage sites in Jerusalem, and we will continue to maintain the heritage of Israel in this city.”
Citing Lamentations 5:21, Housing Minister Uri Ariel added, “We have triumphed in the laying of yet another building block in the development of Jerusalem, a symbolic point in the vision that continues to come true before our eyes: ‘Renew our days as of old.’”
The two politicians placed a stone salvaged from the rubble. Construction was slated to take three years.