Just one building stands out in what once was the Jewish Quarter of downtown Beirut: the Magen Avraham (Shield of Abraham) Synagogue.
The building, which opened in 1926 and was Beirut’s largest synagogue, was badly damaged along with everything else in the area during the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war.
In the last three years, as much of this downtown district has risen from the ashes in stylish renovations, so too Magen Avraham has been rebuilt at least on the outside.
But whereas the area now boasts designer boutiques and sidewalk cafes trying to lure Beirutis and tourists to what once was the “Paris of the Middle East,” Magen Avraham remains closed to visitors, its nearly completed renovation shuttered behind black steel doors and high stone walls.
The old Jewish residential and commercial area that once surrounded the synagogue has not been rebuilt; its badly damaged buildings were bulldozed and the remains – little more than basement walls – sit behind concrete barriers, walled off from public view.
“This area is closed,” a Lebanese soldier shouts, as I slip through the gate before a departing security guard can close it. “No pictures,” he adds firmly.
“Why not?” I ask.
“This is a government area,” he explains, as if they should say it all.
True, the magnificent Grand Serai, Beirut’s “Parliament Hill” that houses the Prime Minister’s office and the legislature, towers above the old Jewish Quarter, but why no photos is a mystery.
“Even this,” I ask, pointing to the muddy basement ruins. “Yes. No photos,” he repeats.
“It looks like a very old area,” I say. “Will a new building be built here?” The attractive four-storey headquarters of Lebanon’s Audi Bank has been constructed just to the northwest of the Jewish area, and the new marble building that houses the Lebanese haute couturier Elie Saab is immediately to the west.
“I don’t know,” he answers, “but no photos.”
“What’s this?” I ask, innocently, pointing to the adjacent synagogue that stands out like a flower in the desert. “It looks like something Jewish.”
“Yes, it is Jewish,” he admits. “No photos.”
No sooner had the soldier escorted me from the closed off area, allowing me to walk down the new cobble-stone road that passes in front of the closed synagogue, when a plain-clothed security official on a motor-scooter pulled up and stopped me.
“No photos,” he says.
I figured he must have seen me whip out my BlackBerry as soon as the soldier turned his back on me. I put it back in my pocket.
“Okay, okay,” I say. “But why not? It looks like a nice building.”
“Not allowed,” was all he offers by way of escalation.
I nod a couple times and he prepares to pull away.
“How about just one?” I ask, with a big smile and my index finger erect, making like a tourist who found it hard not to take a snapshot of everything he sees.
“No,” he replies very firmly. “No photos.”
I can make out enough of the white stucco and golden stone building as I walk past, peering over the steel gate and stone walls.
It’s an attractive structure, cut along the A-lines of a church, except that instead of a cross at the apex, sit a pair of round-top tablets, inscribed in Hebrew, presumably with the Ten Commandments.
The building’s outside work looks pretty much finished, but glass is missing from some of the windows and it’s not clear what inside work remains to be done.
As rain begins to resume, and I reach inside my pack (for a collapsible umbrella), yet another suspicious security guard spots me and comes running. “No photos,” he says.
Later, I walk back on the unused road, crossing again in front of the synagogue. In full view of the same guards, I pull out my BlackBerry again, this time pressing it to my ear and talking as if in conversation. I take three snaps as I pass.
They’re not very revealing, but the best I could do under the circumstances.
