MOSCOW, March 8 (JTA) — A little Jerusalem now stands in the Russian capital. With the dedication of a new synagogue here, built with money donated from a Moscow-based Muslim charity, there’s now a complex with places of worship for three of the country’s major faiths. The three-story synagogue, decorated with a big, stained-glass Star of David on the front, stands next to a Russian Orthodox church and a mosque. Dubbed “Little Jerusalem” by its developers, the complex is located in northern Moscow. Jewish officials were perplexed by the gift from the Muslim group. “It’s a little odd that these people want to build synagogues,” says Rabbi Berel Lazar, chairman of the Rabbinical Alliance of the Commonwealth of Independent States. But he welcomed the gesture, saying that “any new synagogue in Moscow is needed.” With the opening of the Darchei Shalom Synagogue — Hebrew for Ways of Peace — there are four synagogues currently operating in the Russian capital. David Karpov, a Lubavitch rabbi who will officiate in the new synagogue, said he will try to attract Jews who are serious about their Judaism “I would like to see it as a place of communication for well-educated, thinking Jews who are in a spiritual quest and want to dig deeper into their own heritage,” he said.
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