BALTIMORE (JTA) — Iranians Jews in Baltimore will dedicate a new $3 million, three-story synagogue built in the style of Persian architecture.
The building of Ohr haMizrach, or Light of the East, which will be dedicated March 15, includes a 250-seat sanctuary and a 150-seat women’s balcony, a social hall, a senior center, classrooms, offices, a kitchen and a beit midrash, the Baltimore Jewish Times reported.
Baltimore is a hub of Persian Jewry due to the efforts of the Ner Israel Yeshiva and its late administrator, Rabbi Herman Neuberger, to help smuggle out members of the community in the years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The 20,000-square-foot building is purposely being dedicated only a few days after Purim, which celebrates the saving of ancient Persia’s Jews as recorded by the Book of Esther.
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