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The locked front door to Tripoli's main synagogue is seen October 3, 2011. David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew who returned to the country in hopes of resurrecting its Jewish community after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi said on Monday that armed men had forced him from the Tripoli synagogue which he had hoped to restore and which he had begun cleaning a day earlier. Gerbi told reporters he was trying to resume cleaning at the long-shuttered synagogue, only to find its door locked.  REUTERS/Ismail Zitouny

Tripoli, Libya - A crowd of about 30 people picketed outside a hotel to protest an exiled Libyan Jewish man’s attempt to restore the capital’s main synagogue.

David Gerbi, who fled to Italy with his family in 1967 as anger rose over the Arab-Israeli war, broke into the crumbling building over the weekend, but Libyan authorities quickly closed it again, saying the effort was premature. Gerbi has said he won’t give up.

Abdul-Razzaq Grisa, a 28-year-old Islamic religious student, said the main condition for Jews to return to Libya was to give all Palestinians their rights and houses back and return them to their homeland.

“If they can do that and we can see that one day maybe we will reconsider the option their existence in our country,” he said, adding he didn’t expect that to happen.

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