Excavation Of Lithuania's Great Synagogue Highlights A 'Painful Page' From History
The synagogue is "very important," says an archaeologist, "not only for Jews but all people living in Lithuania." Just 3,000 Jews are left in the capital, compared to some 70,000 before World War II.
For decades, the principals at a boxy, two-story kindergarten in downtown Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, unwittingly pored over their lesson plans just a few feet above one of the city's most sacred sites.
Today there is a gaping 10-foot hole in what used to be the principal's office, exposing masonry that once was the back of the bimah, the central platform from where the Torah was read in the city's 17th century Great Synagogue. A team of archaeologists from Lithuania, Israel and the U.S. made the discovery this summer.
"I was relieved because now we know
