Dear Fellow Ckyners,

Happy New Year to all my fellow Ckyne descendants,

Many of you may be aware of the efforts put forth by the town of Ckyne to restore the synagogue our ancestors worshiped in since its completion in 1828 and up until its demise during WWII.  Let me try to bring you up to date.

The gentiles in this small town and interested parties in the surrounding villages over the years have restored the Jewish Cemetery.  They then turned their attention to saving the synagogue which had been neglected for years.  They formed a restoration committee made up of religious business and civic leaders to try and raise funds to complete this project.  Jindra Bromova who heads up this effort has worked tirelessly on trying to obtain funds.  Until recently, they had succeeded in re-roofing and installing windows to preserve the building from further deterioration,   started with restoration of the inside rooms including the frescoes and original Aron ha Kodeš in the main prey room. The winter prey room will be restored completely for the prayers. They have held concerts and other events within the synagogue walls to raise more money and increase the awareness of the historic value of this building and its lost Jewish history.

The hope is to not only remember the Jews who lived in Ckyne, but to also provide a cultural venue for the whole region of South Bohemia and Bavaria, including an info-centre with the data of all important venues, activities, places of interest, and last but not least, the landscape itself.   In 2009 I was able to donate a gift to help jump start and continue these efforts.  The following year Jindra, after many years of trying, succeeded in receiving limited help from the Czech government.  Then last year, another community just across the border in Bavaria together with Ckyne applied and qualified for a cultural grant from the European Union of 400, 000 Euros (over half a million dollars) to restore by 2014 the Ckyne Synagogue to be used as a historic and cultural venue.  In addition the Ministry of Culture in the Czech Republic will also make a much needed grant of 1 million crowns of about $53,600.  The catch here is that the municipality has to come up with some matching funds and they are about $16,300 short.  They are desperately seeking donations in order to secure this money from the Ministry of Culture. 

These are hard times for everyone, but I would hate to see this project fall apart.  The deadline to raise these monies is the end of November.  I am asking for your generosity to help raise these funds before we lose an opportunity to preserve our family's history through this restoration.