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.
Olomouc is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 102,000 inhabitants and its larger urban zone has a population of about 400,000 inhabitants (2024).
Simchat Torah, also spelled Simhat Torah, is a Jewish holiday that celebrates and marks the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. Simchat Torah is a component of the Biblical Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret, which follows immediately after the festival of Sukkot in the month of Tishrei.
A Torah ark refers to an ornamental chamber in the synagogue that houses the Torah scrolls.
Torah reading is a Jewish religious tradition that involves the public reading of a set of passages from a Torah scroll. The term often refers to the entire ceremony of removing the scroll from the Torah ark, chanting the appropriate excerpt with special cantillation (trope), and returning the scroll(s) to the ark. It is also commonly called "laining".
The Old New Synagogue, also called the Altneuschul, situated in Josefov, Prague, is Europe's oldest active synagogue. It is also the oldest surviving medieval synagogue of twin-nave design.
Heřmanův Městec is a town in Chrudim District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 4,900 inhabitants. The historic town centre with the castle complex is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.
The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic, goes back many centuries. There is evidence that Jews have lived in Moravia and Bohemia since as early as the 10th century. Jewish communities flourished here specifically in the 16th and 17th centuries, and again in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Local Jews were mostly murdered in the Holocaust, or exiled at various points. As of 2021, there were only about 2,300 Jews estimated to be living in the Czech Republic.
Congregation Beth Israel is a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Berkeley, California, in the United States. Established in 1924 as the Berkeley Hebrew Center, it traces its origins to the First Hebrew Congregation of Berkeley, founded in 1909. It was Berkeley's first synagogue and remains its oldest. Lay-led for four decades, it hired its first rabbi, Saul Berman, in 1963.
Har Sinai – Oheb Shalom Congregation is a Reform Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 7310 Park Heights Avenue, in Pikesville, Baltimore County, Maryland, in the United States. Established in 1842 in Baltimore and known as Har Sinai Congregation, and in 1853 near Camden Yards as Temple Oheb Shalom, the two congregations merged in 2019 and is the oldest Reform congregation in the United States that has used the same prayer rite since its inception.
Congregation Beit Simchat Torah ("CBST") is a non-denominational progressive Jewish synagogue located at 130 West 30th Street, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, New York, United States.
Shaarey Tphiloh is a Modern Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue located at 400 Deering Avenue, in Portland, Maine, in the United States. The congregation claims it is the oldest continuously operating synagogue in Portland. The name of the synagogue literally means "Gates of Prayer" in Hebrew.
The Westminster Synagogue is an independent Progressive Jewish congregation and synagogue, located near Hyde Park, in Central London, England, in the United Kingdom. The synagogue is located in Kent House, a restored Victorian town house in Knightsbridge. The building, which dates from the late 1800s, also houses the Czech Memorial Scrolls Centre.
The Nessah Synagogue is a Sephardic synagogue in Beverly Hills, California.
The Klausen Synagogue is a former Jewish synagogue located in Prague, in the Czech Republic.
Gustav Sicher was a chief rabbi of Prague.
Berthold Oppenheim (1867–1942) was the rabbi of Olomouc, Moravia, from 1892 to 1939. He was murdered in 1942 at the Treblinka extermination camp.
Congregation Beth Tikvah Ahavat Shalom Nusach Hoari, also known simply as Beth Tikvah, is a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec, Canada.
Temple Israel, also known as the Cape Town Progressive Jewish Congregation (CTPJC), is a Progressive Jewish congregation in Cape Town, with three centres in Green Point, Wynberg and Milnerton. As three centres combined, they are the largest Progressive congregation in South Africa, and the second largest Jewish congregation in Cape Town after Marais Road Shul in Sea Point. The congregation first started in Green Point in 1944, eight years after South Africa's first progressive synagogue, also Temple Israel, opened in Hillbrow in Johannesburg. The Cape Town congregation caters to over 3000 Progressive Jews in the city. The congregation is an affiliate of the South African Union for Progressive Judaism, which is part of the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ). The congregation represents around 18% of Cape Town Jewry.
The Beit Midrash Morasha at Arthur's Road is a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Sea Point, a seaside suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. The congregation was first established in 1897 in District Six, before relocating to Vredehoek in 1945. It moved to its present location on Arthur's Road in Sea Point in 1954.
