TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — An exiled Libyan Jew says he has returned to his homeland to rebuild Tripoli’s main synagogue and promote tolerance now that Moammar Gadhafi has been ousted.
David Gerbi, 56, says he fled with his family to Rome in 1967 amid anger over the Mideast war in which Israel captured the Palestinian territories. Gadhafi expelled the rest of Libya’s Jewish small community two years later.
Now Gerbi is back with an ambitious goal of restoring the destroyed Dar al-Bishi synagogue in Tripoli’s Old City.
He cried as he knocked down a wall blocking the door to the peach-colored building Sunday after getting permission from Libya’s new rulers. He says he’ll start by clearing garbage piled on the floor.
