Hurva Synagogue is home to first wedding since 1948

Avraham Pashnov and Rachel-Orli Journo were wed at the synagogue in Jerusalem's Old City that was destroyed by the Jordanian Arab Legion.

By JOSHUA HAMERMAN
hurva wedding 311 (photo credit: Roman Yanushevsky)
hurva wedding 311
(photo credit: Roman Yanushevsky)
The Hurva Synagogue in Jerusalem, which was officially rededicated a year ago, celebrated a milestone on Tuesday when for the first time since its destruction by Jordan’s Arab Legion on May 27, 1948, the Ashkenazi synagogue in the Old City’s Jewish Quarter hosted a wedding ceremony as an operational house of worship.
Avraham Pashnov and Rachel-Orli Journo were married in the Hurva’s courtyard.
During the ceremony, Pashnov said he and his wife were “only a tiny chain link that brings together the past and the future.”
The next wedding is scheduled for Sunday. Couples had married at the synagogue’s ruins before the rededication ceremony.
The Hurva was originally built in 1701 by Judah Hahasid’s followers, but they were unable to repay their creditors, who burned down the synagogue 20 years later as a result. The Hurva was reopened for worship in 1864 after a seven-year rebuilding effort. Jewish communities in the Diaspora contributed funds toward the project’s completion.
At last year’s rededication ceremony, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin read a passage his maternal great-grandfather wrote about the Hurva: “From the hills surrounding Jerusalem, [the Hurva] rises up. And as it rises, it is reminiscent of a moon among the stars in the sky.”
The Hurva’s second incarnation was blown up by Jordanian soldiers during the War of Independence. Before independence, the Hurva hosted Zionist leaders Theodor Herzl and Ze’ev Jabotinsky.