The Scolanova Synagogue (Judeo-Italian for new synagogue) [1] is a medieval synagogue in Trani, Italy. It was built as a synagogue in the 13th century, [2] confiscated by the church during a wave of antisemitism around the year 1380, and converted for use as a church known as Santa Maria in Scolanova. In 2006, the building was deconsecrated by the Church and returned to its original use.
By 1541 all of the four synagogues in Trani had been converted to churches and the 310 Jews remaining in the city forcibly converted to Christianity. The four confiscated synagogues were renamed Santa Maria in Scolanova, San Leonardo Abate, San Pietro Martire, and Santi Quirico e Giovita (since renamed Sant'Anna), which was once the Scolagrande synagogue. San Pietro was later demolished. A plaque still visible on the northern wall of Sant'Anna explains that it was built on the site of a demolished synagogue in 1247. [3] [4] San Leonardo has undergone such extensive renovation that little of the synagogue building survives. [5]
In 2006 the Scolanova Synagogue, which had been standing as an empty and disused church since the 1950s, was de-consecrated and returned to the Jewish community. The individuals principally responsible for the reconsecration of the synagogue were Professor and Mrs. Francesco Lotoro, descendants of Italian Anusim. Professor Lotoro is a pianist and conductor, who had studied the music of the Nazi concentration camps. The community now includes descendants of Neofiti (Italian crypto-Jews) and San Nicandro Jews. [6]
A very old oil painting of St. Mary hangs in the niche that once held the Torah ark. The Church has refused to allow the painting to be moved to another church or to a museum. Moreover, the building is a protected historic site, so the Jewish congregation is not allowed to move the painting. The solution has been to hang a large image of a menorah in front of the painting. [6]
The synagogue was converted for use as a church without significant alterations being made to the interior of the building. The Gothic synagogue is a rectangular, masonry building, 49 by 21 feet. The barrel-vaulted ceiling is 36 feet high. There are three windows in the eastern wall, one on each side of the Torah Ark, and one above it. [3] [7]
The cut-stone surround for the Torah ark still exists. [3] The ark was once reached by a flight of seven steps. It featured a central column that divided two separate arched openings. [7] The building next door once contained the synagogue's women's gallery and, in the basement, the stairs and pool of the medieval mikveh which survive. [6]
A synagogue, sometimes referred to by the Yiddish term shul and referred to by Reform communities as a temple, is a Jewish house of worship. Synagogues have a place for prayer, where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies, have rooms for study, social hall(s), administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious school and Hebrew school, sometimes Jewish preschools, and often have many places to sit and congregate; display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork throughout; and sometimes have items of some Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself on display.
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.
Trani is a seaport of Apulia, in southern Italy, on the Adriatic Sea, 40 kilometres (25 mi) by railway west-northwest of Bari. It is one of the capital cities of the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani.
The Great Synagogue of Vilnius, which once stood at the end of Jewish Street (I-2), Vilnius, Lithuania, was built between 1630 and 1633 after permission was granted to construct a synagogue from stone. Standing on the spot of an existing synagogue built in 1572, the site had first been used to house a Jewish house of prayer in 1440. Damaged in World War II, it was demolished in 1955–1957 and replaced by a kindergarten and a primary school.
The Jews of San Nicandro are a small community of proselytes from San Nicandro Garganico, Italy. The San Nicandro Jews are descended from local non-Jewish families from the 15th century. According to John A. Davis, professor of Italian history at the University of Connecticut, the Jews of San Nicandro represent "the only case of collective conversion to Judaism in Europe in modern times".
The Central Synagogue of Aleppo,, also known as the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, Joab's Synagogue or Al-Bandara Synagogue, has been a Jewish place of worship since the 5th century C.E. in Aleppo. When it functioned, it was considered the main synagogue of the Syrian Jewish community. The synagogue is noted as being the location where the Aleppo codex was housed for over five hundred years until it was removed during the 1947 Aleppo pogrom, during which the synagogue was burned. The synagogue still stands but is in a ruined state.
The Synagogue of Casale Monferrato is a 16th-century synagogue located in Vicolo Salmone Olper in the traditionally Jewish quarter of Casale Monferrato, Province of Alessandria, region of Piedmont, Italy.
This article deals in more detail with some of the notable synagogues of Jerusalem that do not have their own page as yet.
The Włodawa Synagogue in Włodawa, Poland is an architectural complex consisting of two historic synagogues and a Jewish administrative building, now preserved as a museum. The complex includes the Włodawa Great Synagogue of 1764–74, the late 18th century Small Synagogue, and the 1928 community building. It is "one of the best-preserved" synagogues in Poland.
Córdoba Synagogue is a historic edifice in the Jewish Quarter of Córdoba, Spain, built in 1315. The synagogue's small size points to it having possibly been the private synagogue of a wealthy man. It is also possible that Córdoba's complex of buildings was a yeshivah, kollel, or study hall. Another possibility is that this was the synagogue of a trade guild, which converted a residence or one of the work rooms into the synagogue. The synagogue was decorated according to the best Mudejar tradition.
The Cherasco Synagogue is the old synagogue of the Jewish community of Cherasco, Italy.
St. Anne's Church is a Roman Catholic church located in the town of Trani, Apulia in Italy. Originally, it was built as the Scolagrande Synagogue by the Italian–Jewish community of Apulia during the Middle Ages; the structure houses now the Jewish Section of the Diocesan Museum of Trani.
The Italian Synagogue of Padua is the only synagogue still in use of the several that flourished in the university town of Padua from the Renaissance through World War II.
The Ferrara Synagogue is a synagogue located in Ferrara, Italy.
The Jodenbuurt is a neighbourhood of Amsterdam, Netherlands. For centuries before World War II, it was the center of the Dutch Jews of Amsterdam — hence, its name. It is best known as the birthplace of Baruch Spinoza, the home of Rembrandt, and the Jewish ghetto of Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
The Eshtemoa Synagogue, located 15 km south of Hebron in as-Samu, West Bank, refers to the remains of an ancient Jewish synagogue dating from around the 4th–5th century CE.
The history of the Jews in Apulia can be traced back over two thousand years. Apulia in Hebrew:פוליה) is a region in the "heel of the boot" of the peninsula of Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea. The Jews have had a presence in Apulia for at least 2000 years. The Jews of Apulia had a rich Rabbinic tradition and also had a sizeable Jewish population in the central Mediterranean prior to their expulsion.