Plovdiv Synagogue Israeli ambassadors to Bulgaria, were present at its inauguration. The funding for the restoration of the 19th-century Zion Synagogue. was raised by the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (USD 26,000) and the London-based Hanadiv Charitable Foundation. Plovdiv Synagogue The Zion Plovdiv Synagogue is a synagogue in the city of Plovdiv located in Bulgaria. This synagogue is one of the only 2 synagogues that remain active to this day in Bulgaria (with the Sofia Synagogue). According to the archaeological research a Synagogue had been constructed in ancient Philippopolis dating back to the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus
Plovdiv is the second or the third-largest cosmopolitan city inhabited by Bulgarians, after Sofia and possibly Varna. According to the 2001 census, out of a population of 338,224 inhabitants, the Bulgarians numbered 302,858 (90%). Stolipinovo in Plovdiv is the largest Roma neighbourhood in the Balkans, having a population of around 20,000 alone; further Roma ghettos are Hadji Hassan Mahala and Sheker Mahala. Therefore, the census number is a deflation of the number of Roma people, and they are most likely the second-largest group after the Bulgarians, most of all because the Muslim Roma in Plovdiv claim to be of Turkish ethnicity