Just like cathedrals are for Catholics, synagogues are proud monuments of Jewish history, our legacy in architecture passed through generations. But what should be done with old synagogues where no Jews longer live, the living conditions—inhabited by non-Jews—are poor, and money is being spent to rebuild synagogues that are never used? This problem sprang up recently in Cairo, where the famed Ben Maimon synagogue in the old Jews’ Quarter, which is no longer inhabited by Jews, is under rehabilitation to restore its former glory. The synagogue is named for the great Jewish thinker and doctor Maimonides. Dr. Zahi Hawass, the Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of the Antiquities—the man wearing the Indiana Jones-style hat in Egyptian documentaries, talking about tomb finds and mummies—maintains, “Jewish sites are an important part of our heritage.” But whose heritage does the synagogue belong to—that of the Egyptians or Jews of today, or the Egyptian Jews of yesterday? Under clear modern law, the synagogue is on Egyptian land. [...]