Excerpt:
A synagogue in the center of the French city of Marseille was sold to a Muslim association that is planning to turn it into a mosque.
The Or Thora synagogue on Saint Dominique Street near the Saint-Charles train station was sold a few months ago for approximately $400,000 to the Al Badr Association ahead of its reopening in the summer, the local daily La Provence reported Tuesday.
The switch reflects a demographic shift in which, over the past 16 years, tens of thousands of Marseille Jews have left its once heavily Jewish center for the city's more affluent suburbs, La Provence reported.