Restoring a Part of Egypt's Jewish History

CAIRO, Egypt, Oct. 30, 2009 — -- Tucked away behind tiny narrow streets in Old Cairo is Harat Al Yahoud, the Alley of the Jews, a small area where Egyptian Jewish families once lived and worked, comprising part of the intellectual and business classes in the 1950s.

But after the Six Day War in 1967, anger toward Israel grew and some of the Jews were forced out of Egypt. Now, only 80 live in the country.

But in the Alley of the Jews, a reminder of their existence remains. It is the old synagogue of Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, named after one of the greatest medieval Twelfth-century Jewish scholars and declared an antiquity in Egypt in the 1980s.

Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), explains that it is ''the most important Jewish temple" because "he [Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon] was a great physician and philosopher. He was the special physician to the great Arab leader, Salahuddin."

"The temple is unique, there is a part which is for prayer, another part that people will come by to ask for cure," Hawass said. It is the reason why today, work is underway in earnest to restore the building to its full glory.

Seventy percent of the restoration work has now been completed, but the synagogue still looks like a construction site complete with scaffolding, a cement mixer and workers wearing hard hats.

Dr. Ayman Hamed, who has overseen the project since it began in 2007, pointed to pictures of what the site previously looked like, telling ABC News, "It was a dump area because the roof had collapsed. It was full of rubbish, a deserted place, no cared about it. Without windows, everything was a mess.''

As Hawass noted, this is not the first time that conservation work has been attempted.

"In [the] 1960s the Jewish temple was neglected and the Jewish community restored it badly, we have to clean the bad restoration and do the good restoration that we do now," he said.

It took a year to conduct studies on the structure before the real work could begin. Part of the synagogue had been flooded, which meant that the water levels were high, threatening to erode the building.

Hamed and his team immediately installed a water pump system, which is still operational today. A network of pipes can be seen through crevices beneath the building.