Sukkot is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days, beginning on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which Israelites were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Originally a harvest festival celebrating the autumn harvest, Sukkot’s modern observance is characterized by festive meals in a sukkah, a temporary wood-covered hut, celebrating the Exodus from Egypt.
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It has a place for prayer where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, choir performances, and children's plays. They also have rooms for study, social halls, administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious and Hebrew studies, and many places to sit and congregate. They often display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork alongside items of Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself.
A Torah ark refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls.
A mechitza in Judaism is a partition, particularly one that is used to separate men and women.
Synagogue architecture often follows styles in vogue at the place and time of construction. There is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. According to tradition, the Shekhinah or divine presence can be found wherever there is a minyan, a quorum, of ten. A synagogue always contains an Torah ark where the Torah scrolls are kept, called the aron qodesh by Ashkenazi Jews and the hekhal by Sephardic Jews.
The West London Synagogue, abbreviated WLS, and fully the West London Synagogue of British Jews is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue, located near Marble Arch, at 34 Upper Berkeley Street, in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England, in the United Kingdom.
Simchat Beit Hashoevah or Simchas Beis Hashoeiva is a special celebration held by Jews during the Intermediate days of Sukkot.
The Great Synagogue, also known as the Georgian Synagogue, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 45-47 Leselidze Street in Tbilisi, in the republic of Georgia.
The history of Jews in Thailand began in the 18th century with the arrival of Baghdadi Jewish families and Jewish peoples from Europe during the Napoleonic era (1799–1815).
The Old Synagogue is a former Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 944 King Street in Canterbury, Kent, England, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1720, the congregation worshiped in the Ashkenazi rite until it was dissolved in c. 1911. Between 2008 and 2004, a non-denominational Jewish community occasionally worshiped in the former synagogue.
This article deals in more detail with some of the notable synagogues of Jerusalem that do not have their own page as yet.
The Nariman House, designated as a Chabad house, is a five-storey landmark in the Colaba area of South Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. The building was home to a Chabad house, a Jewish outreach centre run by Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, who had owned the building since around 2006. The centre had an educational center, a synagogue, offered drug prevention services, and a hostel.
The Great Synagogue is a former Orthodox Jewish synagogue, located at 33 Karaimska Street, in the Jewish quarter of Lutsk, in Volynska Oblast, Ukraine. The congregation worshipped in the Ashkenazi rite.
The history of the Jews in Curaçao can be traced back to the mid-17th century, when the first Jewish immigrants began to arrive. The first Jews in Curaçao were Sephardi Jewish immigrants from the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain. These immigrants founded Congregation Mikvé Israel-Emanuel, the oldest continuously used synagogue in the Americas. The first Jew to settle in Curaçao was a Dutch-Jewish interpreter named Samuel Cohen, who arrived on board a Dutch fleet in 1634. By the mid-1700s, the community was the most prosperous in the Americas and many of the Jewish communities in Latin America, primarily in Colombia and Venezuela, resulted from the influx of Curaçaoan Jews.
Historic Congregation B’nai Abraham, officially B’nai Abraham Chabad, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 523-527 Lombard Street, in the Society Hill neighborhood of the Center City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Established as a congregation in 1874 and the current synagogue building completed in 1910, worshipers can access daily, Shabbat, and holy day services in the Ashkenazi rite. B'nai Abraham is home to a Jewish Preschool, as well as Lubavitch of Center City.
Beit Harambam Congregation is a Sephardi Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the united States. Founded in 1978, its membership is largely composed of Hebrew-speaking Israeli expatriates. Started as a basement minyan, the congregation purchased a small home in the 1980s, which was subsequently destroyed by arson in 2000. With significant funding from the Philadelphia Jewish community, the building was restored. The synagogue was further expanded with a larger sanctuary and a social hall, completed in 2011.
The Batei Mahse is an apartment complex built from 1857 to 1890 in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, intended to house the city's poorer residents.
