During the Sandinista\’s regime, the country\’s synagogue, damaged in a 1978 fire, was converted into a secular school. It is being used now as a funeral home. The country\’s Torah remains in exile in Costa Rica.
During Ortega\’s last stint in power, as head of the left-wing revolutionary government from 1979-90, the entire Jewish community fled into exile while the Sandinistas built cozy relations with the PLO and other anti-Israel groups and allied themselves closely with Cuba.Now, 16 years later, just as the community is on the verge of restoring itself to its pre-revolution levels, the Sandinistas have narrowly won a new chance at heading this impoverished Central American nation.
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