In
addition to internal, Jewish problems, the restitution process
has encountered obstacles from local ruling authorities.
Such obstacles, for example, appeared in cases when the
synagogue building was being used as a residence and there
was no place to resettle the residents or when an influential
institution that could not be ousted was located in the
building.
The fight for the return of synagogues sometimes takes years.
This was the situation in Kishinev, where the Association
of Jewish Communal Organizations of Moldova succeeded in
1999, after a long struggle in regaining (actually buying)
the synagogue on Diorditsa St. (which was built in 1835
and is the oldest of the surviving synagogues in Kishinev).
Sometimes
attempts to regain a synagogue were met with such resistance
that the community decided to abandon its efforts. This
was the case in Smolensk, where a vocational school was
located in the former Choral Synagogue. As the community’s
intention to request restitution became known, the local
newspaper printed a provocative article about Jewish plans
to deprive “our children” of the possibility
of gaining an education. As a result, the Jewish communal
leadership decided it would be prudent to forget about its
claims to the synagogue.
In
Tbilisi the local Jewish community fought an exhausting
battle to gain the former Ashkenazi synagogue, where the
popular Georgian Theater was ensconced, and then spent a
great amount of money to reconstruct and renovate the building.
Although a court decided that the synagogue should be retained
by the Jewish community, municipal authorities refused to
carry out the decision. The fight for this synagogue caused
friction between Georgians and Jews.
Sometimes an appeal to the authorities for the return of
a synagogue or merely public discussion of the question
has led to the intentional destruction of the building.
In Khabarovsk local authorities destroyed a former synagogue
in the summer of 1993 when the Jewish community began to
ask for its return. In Kremenchug “unknown persons”
set fire to the synagogue, which was totally destroyed.
Ukrainian city of Khmelnitsky (infamous in Jewish history
for the 1919 bloody pogrom committed by Petliura’s
forces) was adorned by the impressive building of a former
synagogue which had been transformed into a sports club.
The club left the building in the 1980s; in 1991 the local
authorities ordered the building torn down. In Dragobych,
Omsk, Yaroslavl, and Ryazan “criminals” set
fire to synagogues that had been returned to the Jewish
community. In the fall of 1993 in Kamenets-Podolsk, during
the night before the signing by the city executive committee
of a resolution transferring the synagogue on Dragomanov
Street for free use by the Jewish community, the synagogue
was looted, the floor boards and window frames were carted
off, and some of the interior walls were broken down.