The chairman of the State Agency for Religious Issues Zaza Vashakmadze held a meeting with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to Georgia Shabtai Tzur that was attended by Jamlet Khukhashvili and Merab Chanchalashvili, chairman of the board of Tbilisi Great Synagogue.

The chairman shared his joy regarding the fact that the Ambassador is a Georgian Jew, born and raised in Georgia and expressed hope that this would further strengthen friendly relations between the two countries and a cooperation with the agency.

Zaza Vashakmadze introduced Shabtai Tzur to the government’s recently made decisions on financial and property issues regarding the Jewish community.

Shabtai Tzur thanked the government of Georgia and especially the former Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili for helping Georgian Jews. In recent years, with an effort of the government eight synagogues and David Baazov Museum of History of the Jews of Georgia and Georgian-Jewish Relations have been restored. Moreover Jewish community has been financed for three years by the state. The Ambassador noted, that he hadn’t heard about such a precedent before and the world should know how the government cared about the confessions and assisted them in Georgia.

Zaza Vashakmadze and Shabtai Tzur jointly agreed to solve the issues regarding the synagogues in Vani and Sachkhere and to celebrate, once again, centuries-old Georgian-Jewish friendship in these regions.