Ukrainian Appeals Court Rejects Jewish Community's Claim To Former Synagogue Building

In the Ukraine, the Odessa Administrative Court of Appeals earlier this month reversed a decision of the Balta District Court and rejected the claim of the Balta Jewish community to an abandoned building that once housed the 100-year old Savranskaya synagogue. According to a JTA report yesterday, the Jewish community paid 2500 rubles for construction of the building in 1903. However it stopped being used as a synagogue during the Holocaust years. The building was turned into apartments by the Soviet government, and subsequently Ukrtelecom, the Ukrainian national telecommunications operator, began to use the building and kept it after it was privatized in 2003.