Algeria demolishes the 130-year-old “Shalom Lebahar” synagogue, erasing one of the last remaining symbols of its once-thriving Jewish heritage.
In a somber act that has deeply saddened Jewish communities worldwide, Algerian authorities have demolished the historic “Shalom Lebahar” synagogue—a spiritual cornerstone of North Africa’s Jewish legacy. The synagogue, nestled in the Bab al-Wadi district of Algiers, had stood since 1894, built on land donated by Shlomo Lebahar, a respected member of Algeria’s once-vibrant Jewish community.
Officials justified the demolition, claiming the structure was at risk of collapse. Yet for many, the destruction represents far more than a safety measure—it symbolizes the final erasure of Jewish memory from Algeria’s capital, a city that once echoed with Hebrew prayers and Sephardic melodies.
Before Algeria’s independence in 1962, tens of thousands of Jews worshiped freely in synagogues like Shalom Lebahar. But when France withdrew and anti-Jewish sentiment surged, nearly all Algerian Jews fled, leaving behind synagogues, cemeteries, and cultural landmarks that slowly fell into decay—or were repurposed. The Shalom Lebahar synagogue was converted into an event hall, a ghost of its sacred past.
For years, descendants of Algerian Jews, supported by a foreign embassy (reportedly sympathetic to Jewish preservation efforts), tried to save the building. Despite their legal appeals and diplomatic pressure, Bulldozers eventually tore it down, extinguishing one of the last visible remnants of Jewish Algiers.
Jewish heritage advocates have condemned the demolition as a “quiet cultural cleansing”, pointing to a regional trend in North Africa where Jewish landmarks face neglect or destruction. Israel’s Heritage Ministry has also called the act “a painful reminder of the Jewish exile from Arab lands, where history itself is being demolished alongside stone and mortar.”
The fall of Shalom Lebahar is more than the loss of a building—it is the silencing of a community’s voice that once contributed richly to Algerian society. The synagogue’s rubble now joins a growing graveyard of forgotten Jewish heritage across the Arab world—a past deliberately buried, but not forgotten.
