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.
Kafr ʿInān, is a former Palestinian village, depopulated in the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. It was located around 33 kilometres (21 mi) east of Acre.
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Sepphoris, known in Hebrew as Tzipori and in Arabic as Saffuriya is an archaeological site located in the central Galilee region of Israel, 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) north-northwest of Nazareth. It lies 286 meters (938 ft) above sea level and overlooks the Beit Netofa Valley. The site holds a rich and diverse historical and architectural legacy that includes remains from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.
Naaran was an ancient Jewish village dating to the 5th and 6th century CE, located in the modern-day West Bank. Remains of the village have been excavated north-west of Jericho. Naaran is archeologically notable for a mosaic floor of a synagogue, featuring a large zodiac design, which was discovered at the site.
Ehud Netzer was an Israeli architect, archaeologist and educator, known for his extensive excavations at Herodium, where in 2007 he found the tomb of Herod the Great; and the discovery of a structure defined by Netzer as a synagogue, which if true would be the oldest one ever found.
Kursi is an archaeological site in the Golan Heights containing the ruins of a Byzantine monastery and identified by tradition as the site of Jesus' "Miracle of the Swine". Part of the archaeological site is now an Israeli national park. Kursi takes its name from the Talmudic site. A marble slab with Aramaic text discovered in December 2015 seems to indicate that the settlement had, as of c. 500 CE, a Jewish or Judeo-Christian population.
The Peki’in Synagogue, is a former Jewish congregation and synagogue located in the centre of Peki'in, in the Northern District of Israel. The current building was erected in 1873, on the site of older ones. Local tradition holds that it has two stones taken from the walls of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem built into its walls. The site is also said to be where Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah established his beth midrash in antiquity.
Susya is a location in the southern Hebron Governorate in the West Bank. It houses an archaeological site with extensive remains from the Second Temple and Byzantine periods, including the ruins of an archeologically notable synagogue, repurposed as a mosque after the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the 7th century. A Palestinian village named Susya was established near the site in the 1830s. The village lands extended over 300 hectares under multiple private Palestinian ownership, and the Palestinians on the site are said to exemplify a southern Hebron cave-dwelling culture present in the area since the early 19th century whose transhumant practices involved seasonal dwellings in the area's caves and ruins of Susya.
Beth Alpha is a sixth-century CE synagogue located at the foot of the northern slopes of the Gilboa mountains near Beit She'an, Israel. It is now part of Bet Alfa Synagogue National Park and managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
The ancient synagogue of Gaza was built in 508 CE during the Byzantine period and was discovered in 1965. It was located in the ancient port city of Gaza, then known as "Maiumas", currently the Rimal district of Gaza City.
The Maon Synagogue is a 6th-century synagogue and archaeological site located in the Negev Desert near Kibbutz Nirim and Kibbutz Nir Oz. It is noted for its "magnificent" mosaic floor.
Ancient synagogues in Israel refers to synagogues located in Israel built by communities of Jews and Samaritans from antiquity to the Early Islamic period.
Hammath Tiberias or Hammat Tiberias is an ancient archaeological site and an Israeli national park known as Hamat Tverya National Park, which is located on the adjacent to Tiberias on the road to Zemach that runs along the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Ancient synagogues in Palestine refers to synagogues and their remains in the Land of Israel/Palestine region, built by the Jewish and Samaritan communities from the time of the Hasmonean dynasty during the Late Hellenistic period, to the Late Byzantine period.
Shikhin, known in Greek as Asochis, was an ancient Jewish village in Galilee which was abandoned in the fourth century CE. It was situated right next to the regional capital, Sepphoris, and its ruins have been discovered about 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) northwest of Nazareth. As of May 2012, the site is under excavation. So far, evidence of extensive pottery work and a synagogue have been uncovered.
The Synagogue-Church at Gerasa in northwestern Jordan was originally an ancient Byzantine era synagogue that was later converted to a church. It is located within the Decapolis city of Gerasa and is situated on high ground that overlooks the Temple of Artemis at Gerasa. The synagogue is evidence of Jewish settlement in the Transjordan through late antiquity.
Zodiac mosaics in ancient synagogues are known from at least eight examples from the Land of Israel in the 4th-6th centuries CE during the Byzantine period. As a typical arrangement, the mosaic floors of such synagogues consisted of three panels, the central one containing the Jewish zodiac.
Ancient Jewish art, is art created by Jews in both the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora prior to the Middle Ages. It features symbolic or figurative motifs often influenced by biblical themes, religious symbols, and the dominant cultures of the time, including Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman art.
The Andriake Synagogue is a former ancient Jewish synagogue, that was discovered in Andriake, an ancient city in the historical region of Lycia, in Asia Minor. The building, that is now an archaeological site, was found in the town of Demre in the Antalya province, on the southwestern tip of modern-day Turkey.
