Maayan Haim Synagogue for the Immigrants from Georgia

The story

The synagogue “Maayan Haim for the Immigrants from Georgia” stands at 30 Ibn Ezra Street in Beersheba, and is listed in the register of synagogues of the city's Religious Council. Georgian Jewry is a community of ancient days; some claim that its beginning is in the destruction of the First Temple and in the Babylonian exile, and according to the community's tradition its members are the descendants of the exiles of the Kingdom of Judah. “Kartlis Tskhovreba”, the earliest written document on the history of Georgia, opens this chapter with the words “Then King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, and Jews who fled from it came to Kartli”. The Jews in Georgia lived traditionally in a separate quarter in every town and village, which was called “the Jews' quarter”, and there stood the community's buildings. The community was estimated at about one hundred thousand people in the 1970s, and most of its members immigrated to Israel from ideological motives. The name of the house uses the appellation “Gruzinim”, which was common in Israel; members of the community protested against it and its use declined. In Beersheba, Neighborhood Dalet took in a large immigration from Russia and from Georgia in the 1970s. The gabbai listed in the register of the Religious Council is Haim Rosenthal.

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• Beersheba