Synagogue renovation plan on the table

Herzliya's 90 synagogues may get much-needed renovations at municipal expense after city councilors agreed to discuss the matter.

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
Herzliya's 90 synagogues may get much-needed renovations at municipal expense after city councilors agreed recently to set up a special committee to discuss the matter, reports www.local.co.il. At a recent council meeting, councilors unanimously passed a motion to set up the committee for the purpose of discussing whether the city should allocate money for synagogue renovations. According to the report, the issue arose when councilor Tzvi Weiss suggested at the council meeting that the city should provide a budget of NIS 1 million per year for the next four or five years to enable much-needed renovations to take place at many of the city's synagogues. Weiss said many of the buildings were old and in a state of disrepair, and because many synagogues were used for community activities as well as prayer the city should help fund renovations. Several councilors opposed the idea, saying that synagogues are not municipal buildings and that it may not even be legal for the city to fund their renovations. But when Mayor Yael German suggested setting up a committee to discuss the allocation of public funds and whether the money should go to the synagogues, the council passed her motion unanimously.