The Jewish community in Samokov began to decline when the mining industry died and the city slowly turned into a backwater. By the 1940s, there were no Jews left in Samokov, though their synagogue survived, and in 1965 was listed as a monument of culture. There were plans to convert it into a concert hall, and restoration had started, but it ended abruptly after a fire broke out in 1975. Ignored and abandoned, the building fell into dilapidation. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was returned to the Bulgarian Jewish community, but plans for restoration are frozen due to lack of interest and funding.