Naomi's Notes: Maribor, Slovenia - the Oldest Shul in Central Europe

As you can imagine, it is not easy being away from home at a time like this-we start our day with tehillim and end it with tehillim. What more can we do? I think this feeling of frustration and impotence in the face of evil is what many are feeling back home at this time. How can we continue to enjoy, sightsee and travel? This is a good question. Do I feel guilty? some of the time. I know my guilt won't really help anything - so much of the time I just push it away. Is this good? Bad? Who knows?

Back on the trail. Graz is one hour from Maribor, Slovenia. One drives through the border without any checks, or passports. It's a good thing I remembered that we needed a road sticker, otherwise we might have got a 300 Euro fine. We stopped in Maribor to see the oldest shul, now turned into a museum becuase there are no Jews left in Maribor. At it's height it only had 300 Jews, and that was back in the 15th century. But that was then about 25% of the city, so the Jews were substantial, and a substantial building they built, back in the 1400s with gothic arches and all. When the municipality decided to renovate the old town, they included the synagogue in their plans, and turned it into a museum. Currently it houses an exhibit about Carl Lutz, Swiss diplomat who saved alot of Hungarian Jews. The building itself is very interesting. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and shared with us lots of info. Here are the pics;