The leaders of the community were imprisoned and shortly after, not only this group but all other Ashkenazim were banished from the city, an interdiction which remained until statute of limitations on the synagogue loans expired roughly a century later.

They were worried, however, that descendants of the Arab creditors still held the old promissory notes relating to the century-old debts incurred by he-Hasid's followers and that a new group of Ashkenazic immigrants would possibly inherit responsibility for repayment.

A year later, several leaders of the group, including Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref, a Lithuanian-born silversmith, and Soloman Pach, travelled to Constantinople endeavouring to obtain such a firman (imperial decree).

They petitioned Muhammad Ali regarding the rebuilding of the synagogue, but concerns about deviating from longstanding Muslim tradition and the Pact of Umar (which restricted the repair or construction of non-Muslim houses of worship) meant permission was not forthcoming.

It seems he was successful in gaining support of the Austrian consul and Muhammad Ali by invoking the name of Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild of Vienna.

As soon as Zoref received the firman, he contacted Zvi Hirsch Lehren of the Clerks' Organisation in Amsterdam, requesting that funds his brother had pledged towards the building of synagogues in Palestine be applied to the Ruin.

(A letter from the leaders of the Amsterdam community to Moses Montefiore in 1849 confirms that permission for a synagogue in the Ashkenasic Compound had not been sanctioned; they had only been allowed to build dwellings in the area.

)[22] In spite of the doubts highlighted in relation to the construction of a synagogue, the Perushim, confidently in possession of the ambiguous firman, began clearing away the rubble from the Ruin courtyard in September 1836.

[22] Zoref, claiming that the Ashkenazim currently in Jerusalem were not related in any way to those who had borrowed the money at the turn of the 18th century, was forced to appear in court requesting a further ruling cancelling the debts.

An outcome of the Crimean War was the British government's willingness to use its increased influence at Constantinople to intervene on behalf of its Jewish subjects who resided in Jerusalem.

One notable emissary, Jacob Saphir, set off for Egypt in 1857 and returned in 1863 having visited Yemen, Aden, India, Java, Australia, New Zealand and Ceylon.

[40] Twelve windows were placed around the base of the dome, which was surrounded by a veranda, which offered a fine view of large parts of the Old City and the area around Jerusalem.

[40] The centre of the synagogue originally contained a high wooden bimah, but this was later replaced with a flat platform covered with expensive marble plates.

In the four corners were drawings of four animals in accordance with the statement in Pirkei Avot: "Be strong as the leopard and swift as the eagle, fleet as the deer and brave as the lion to do the will of your Father in Heaven.

Among the items that were bought with his money were two big bronze candelabras; a silver menorah that "arrived miraculously on the 1st Tevet [1866] precisely in time to light the last eight Hanukah candles" and an iron door made under the holy ark for safe-keeping of the candlestick.

He also earmarked funds towards the building of an "artistically wrought iron fence around the roof under the upper windows so that there be a veranda on which may stand all our brethren who go up in pilgrimage to behold our desolate Temple, and also a partition for the womenfolk on the Feast of Tabernacles and Simchat Torah".

[43] On February 3, 1901 a memorial service for Queen Victoria took place inside the synagogue in gratitude for the protection afforded to the Jews of Jerusalem by Britain.

According to a report in The Jewish Chronicle, the large building was "filled to its utmost capacity and policemen had to keep off the crowds, who vainly sought admission, by force".

Following the Six-Day War, plans were mooted and designs sought for a new synagogue to be built at the site, part of the overall rehabilitation of the Jewish Quarter.

Swayed by the creativity of contemporary architecture and contrary to the 19th century design, which was meant to blend in with the Oriental landscape, they supported the modern redesign of the Hurva by a prominent architect.

Boston-based Israeli-Canadian architect Moshe Safdie, who had built extensively in Jerusalem and trained with Kahn in Philadelphia, was also in favour of rebuilding using contemporary design: "It's absurd to reconstruct the Hurva as if nothing had happened.

[51] In 1996, the Hurva rebuilt arch was compared with the ecclesiastical allegory known as Synagoga, a medieval personification of the "Synagogue", with attributes suggesting her ruined condition.

[d] With the ongoing disputes over the modern façade of the proposed new building, which some felt did not properly match the Jewish Quarter's aesthetic, an Englishman named Charles Clore took the initiative to fund a new design projects.

No further progress was made and when Clore, who had wished to see the synagogue completed in his lifetime, died, his daughter provided funds to create one of the few open spaces in the Jewish Quarter adjacent to the Hurva.

Such condition was then publicly noted and interpreted: This suggested that the single reconstructed arch of the Hurva could no longer be understood as a satisfactory expression of any commitment to rebuild the lost synagogue nor as an acceptable official response to its intentional destruction in 1948.

"[40] The state-funded Jewish Quarter Development Corporation under the leadership of Dov Kalmanovich convinced the Israeli government to allocate $6.2 million (NIS 24m), about 85% of the cost, for the reconstruction, with private donors contributing the remainder.

A group of Secularist and nationalist-religious activists opposed the notion of another synagogue in the Old City and wanted the site to become a museum presenting the historical saga of the Jewish Quarter and displaying archaeological finds unearthed there.

[66] Khaled Mashal of Hamas described the synagogue's opening as "a declaration of war" and called it a "falsification of history and Jerusalem's religious and historic monuments".

[68] The Jordanian government also condemned the move stating that it "categorically rejects the rededication of Hurva synagogue and all other unilateral Israeli measures in occupied East Jerusalem because they run counter to international legitimacy".

[73] In September 2010, Hamas released a propaganda video showing various Israeli landmarks, including the Hurva synagogue, ablaze after coming under missile attack.