World Bulletin / News Desk

After a bid to build an Islamic center on Ground Zero near the site of the 9-11 attacks failed in 2010 following a backlash from people across the US, a Muslim developer in New York has decided to rebuild an old synagogue at Ground Zero to serve the city's Jewish community as a gesture of peace. 

“We’re in the process of buying one of the last untouched corners of Times Square with an opportunity to secure the future of a synagogue that will serve the Jewish community for decades to come,” Sharif El-Gamal, the chief executive of Soho Properties, told the New York Times on Tuesday, February 11.

El-Gamal's had also been hired to build the Islamic center in 2010, but has now undertaken the mission of rebuilding the 83-year-old Jewish synagoge, after buying the building with his partner, Murray Hill Properties, for about $61.5 million from Parsons the New School for Design.

Work on the building is due to begin in March, after which the building will be demolished and temporarily set up in another location till it is rebuilt.

The synagogue currently has a congregation of about 500 and offers services three times a day.