Several hundred people were on hand Monday at a state ceremony to mark the opening of a landmark synagogue in Jerusalem's walled Old City, 62 years after its was destroyed in fighting with Jordan.
The festivities were held against a backdrop of heightened political and religious tensions in the city, where thousands of police were deployed amid fears of unrest.
Yona Metzger, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, placed at the entrance of the synagogue a mezuza -- the parchment scroll inscribed with a verse from the Torah and placed in a case which Jewish families hang on door frames.
The ceremony was attended by Israel's parliament speaker Reuven Rivlin, ministers and the chief rabbis of Israel, and was to be followed by a concert of Jewish liturgical music in the evening.
The synagogue was first built in 1694 and destroyed 21 years later by Ottoman authorities who held power at the time.
The site lay empty for many years, and acquired the name "Hurva," Hebrew for ruin, before it was rebuilt in 1864, becoming a centre for the Jewish community in the Holy Land.
It was blown to pieces in 1948, after Jordanian forces captured the Old City from troops of the newly established state of Israel, during the battle for control of Jerusalem.
The synagogue's latest incarnation is the result of a 20-million-dollar (15-million-euro) government-funded restoration project.
The ceremony came as Israel barred men under the age of 50 and non-Muslims from entering Jerusalem's flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound for a fourth day running after clashes between police and Palestinians in and around the site.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
