G lobal Outside Of Israel, Tiny Monaco Has The Highest Ratio Of THE
JEWISH LIGHT
Jews In The World. Here’s Why The Community Is Growing. By Cnaan Liphshiz have about 400 semicircular seats upholstered in purple velvet. “Having facilities like this really helps bring people in,” Torgmant said. Rabbi Daniel Torgmant inside the Synagogue Edmond Safra in Monaco, March 7, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
MONACO (JTA) — This tiny wealthy country on France’s southeastern 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 $10 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 woodpaneled circular walls. Several wooden circles, each one larger than the previous, surround the rabbi’s pulpit. They ripple outward in the direction of the pews, which THE
JEWISH LIGHT
Israeli entrepreneurs, and Frenchand English-speaking Jews with ties to the banking sector. The Chabad synagogue’s appearance pales in comparison to Safra. Situated on the ground floor of a residential building, its prayer hall can hold about 80 people and lacks the stylish kind of furniture on display at Safra.
A view of Monaco’s Port Hercule in 2017 (John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Like the vast majority of the population here, most of the principality’s Jews were born abroad. Many are millionaires who have come to the tax haven country, where earnings require neither reporting nor sharing with the government. Others are middle-class employees in the tourism, gambling and banking sectors. The resulting Jewish population is a relatively new and diverse community whose members speak different languages and come from disparate cultural backgrounds. There is a bit of religious diversity as well, even though both of the state’s synagogues — Safra and a Chabad-Lubavitch movement outpost — are technically Orthodox. Each has members who are not very strictly Orthodox in their own homes, including many Russianspeaking Jews who own businesses,
Rabbi Tanhoum Matusof reads from the Book of Esther on Purim in Monaco, Feb. 28, 2018. (Courtesy of the Jewish Cultural Center of Monaco)
“The Jews who live here don’t come to us for material reasons, they tend to be well-off,” Tanhoum Matusof, the Chabad emissary who runs the Jewish Cultural Center of Monaco with his wife, Chani, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He recalled one congregant who wondered why the synagogue needed a mikvah, a ritual bath, seeing as so many of its congregants have their own pools. “They need us for spirituality and a sense of community, which is something you don’t need a beautiful building to give.” Still, the Matusofs do take into account the standard of living to which many Jews in Monaco have
become accustomed. Their mikvah, for example, resembles a prestigious spa, and holiday celebrations are sometimes held at one of the city’s ritzy hotels rather than the synagogue. “Listen, one has to understand one’s audience,” Matusof said. At Matusof’s synagogue, which has about 200 regular congregants, services are held in English for the convenience of the many congregants who don’t speak French. English is also sometimes used at the Safra synagogue, but French is more dominant there. The relative simplicity of Matusof’s synagogue also has its charms for some of Monaco’s middle-class Jews, like the family of Mahnaz Grosjen, an Iran-born mother of two. She and her family moved from Geneva, Switzerland, to Monaco seven years ago at the request of her husband’s employer. “I was actually not looking forward to raising teenage kids in a very materialistic place,” said Mahnaz, who works as a fashion designer. “We’re not from the jet set. I actually like that our synagogue looks like any other normal synagogue in Paris or London. I think it sends the right message.” But even some of Monaco’s Jewish millionaires also feel more at home at Matusof’s synagogue, See MONACO on Page
12
Thank you to all my friends in the Jewish Community! I appreciate your suport & your vote. Criminal District Court, Section K www.thejewishlight.org
Elections 2020
11
