Published: 6 October 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
THE TINY WEALTHY COUNTRY on France’s south-eastern coast is famous for its beautiful beaches, coastal mansions and splendid casinos.
Outside of Israel, Monaco also has the highest ratio of Jewish inhabitants of any country in the world, at over 5%, according to statistics provided by its two rabbis.
To be fair, the city-state’s total population is only about 38,600, making it one of the world’s smallest nations. But its some 2,000 Jews are cultivating a growing community thanks in part to a luxurious synagogue opened in 2017.
Synagogue Edmond Safra, which was buoyed by a donation of more than $US10 million by the Safra banking family, is housed inside a building that is shaped like a Torah scroll, its cylinder featuring Jerusalem stone tiling. The structure is oriented to see the Mediterranean and the famed Monaco marina — but has no windows to view them.
The Safra congregation isn’t new, but Daniel Torgmant, its rabbi since 2010, says the new building “has quite simply been an engine for communal growth.” Because of its attractiveness and prime location, “it allows us to attract a lot of people passing through Monaco, or Jewish people whose connection to Judaism is still in its infancy.”
Designed to resemble the far larger Edmond J. Safra Synagogue in Manhattan, the Monaco version has a flat roof that boxes in and conceals a domed ceiling with wooden panels that is revealed only in the interior to dazzling effect. The interior’s artificial lighting is so ample that it sustains blooming orchids in pots affixed to wood-panelled circular walls.
FULL STORY: Outside of Israel, tiny Monaco has the highest ratio of Jews in the world (JTA)
Photo: Rabbi Daniel Torgmant prays at the Synagogue Edmond Safra in Monaco in March 2018 (Cnaan Liphshiz)
