Rishon's old synagogue then and now

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As we saw in the previous post, Rishon LeZion was founded in 1882 by Jews who came from the Russian Empire to farm the land of Israel. 
Here is another mural on a wall in present-day Rishon, now a city.

Here is that same old synagogue, presently undergoing restoration.
It's going to be really nice. 

The airbrushed paintings were made by Hillel Lazarov who has a school for teaching mural making. 

(Linking to Monday Mural meme.)
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The Great Synagogue of small Mazkeret Batya

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On a Beit Harav Kook study tour we visited the old "colonies" of Mazkeret Batya (originally called Ekron), Rishon LeZion, and Rehovot in central Israel.
Mazkeret Batya was founded in 1883.
In 1927 its first synagogue had to be razed, due to structural problems; and in 1928 the new Great Synagogue was built instead.

The sign notes a surprising fact: toward the end of the British Mandate, in the period leading up the war and to Israel's independence in 1948,  the Haganah force had a "slick," a secret weapons cache hidden under the bimah (the table on which the Torah scroll is unrolled and read).

Pictures of the interior of the synagogue after its 1989 renovation can be seen here.

Written in stone:

A GIFT OF THE BENEFACTOR BENJAMIN EDMOND

AND THE BENEFACTOR ADELHEID 

ROTHSCHILD

In the year Tarpaz

Baron Rothschild  and his wife, Adelheid, were great supporters of early Zionism.

He purchased huge tracts of land from the Arabs and got the Jewish pioneering families started in working the land. 

Rothschild changed the name of the Ekron community to Mazkeret Batya in remembrance of his mother, Batya, who had just died. 

You can learn more about Mazkeret Batya in this nice article by a tour guide
and/or at Wikipedia.
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(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)
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The Great Synagogue of Basel

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The Great Synagogue of Basel was built in 1868.

But, it says on the plaque, the first synagogue of Basel existed already in 1200.

A friend took me to Basel on a cold gray day in December.
We looked at the exterior of the impressive building but everything was locked up.
It was a Shabbat afternoon and not a soul was to be seen.

But we can learn from the Jewish Virtual Library website that

the Great Synagogue is a national landmark.  The synagogue, first built in 1868, was expanded and renovated several times over the past century-and-a-half. The Great Synagogue, at Leimenstrasse 24, houses two synagogues, a choir, mikveh, and is beautifully designed. Next door to the synagogue is the community center, library, and day school.

That website, by the way, tells the not always happy history of Jews in Switzerland since the Middle Ages;  very interesting, and not what you'd expect.

The nice website of the Basel Jewish Community, however, paints a rosy picture of today's Jewish situation:

Around 2000 Jews live in and around Basel, a dynamic commercial and industrial city with a rich culture and located in the heart of Europe. Founded over 200 years ago, the Israelitische Gemeinde Basel (IGB) is one of the largest Jewish communities in Switzerland. It is equipped with all the necessary organizations and a well-developed infrastructure. The community is an institution under public law, and legally on equal terms with the churches. As a so-called united community, the IGB includes Jewish members of any religious orientation. It is run according to the rules of the Halacha.
While the majority of the members of the IGB identify with a non-practicing direction of Judaism, there is still a vibrant religious life in this Community. Daily Shacharith as well as Minchah and Ma’ariv services are carried out. Before the Shacharith service, a Daf Yomi takes place daily. On almost all shabbat mornings, the Synagogue Choir Basel contributes to the service. The IGB is one of the few communities in Europe, in which all shabbat as well as Yom Tov services are led by a full-time and professional chazan [cantor].

You can click on my photos a few times to see the details.
And don't miss  panoramic views of the interior at Synagogues360.
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UPDATE: The building has undergone many changes in its long history, including the addition of the two domes.   Here is how it looked in 1930:

(photo source: http://dbs.bh.org.il/image/the-great-synagogue-in-aulerstrasse-basel-switzerland-1930)

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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday,  ABC Wednesday and Our World Tuesday.)
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One of the Austrian synagogues destroyed on Kristallnacht

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Tonight is the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
Israel Museum just posted this good summary on Facebook:

November 9 - 10 1938.
"Kristallnacht," the Night of Broken Glass.
The Nazis unleashed a wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms against Jews in Germany, Austria, and in occupied areas of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

30,00 Jewish men arrested.
7,500 Jewish-owned business had their windows smashed and their wares looted.
267 synagogues destroyed, countless Jewish cemeteries desecrated.
91 Jews murdered.
Zachor.  Remember.

This used to be a synagogue in Stadtschlaining in Burgenland, Austria.
It was devastated on Kristallnacht.

We discovered it yesterday, on Sunday, so the gates were locked.

"Synagogue, built in 1715
In commemoration of the ordeal of our Jewish fellow citizens --
 many of whom were murdered in 1938-1945
-- Israelitische Kultusgemeinschaft Graz  1988"

The former synagogue now houses an organization for peace work and conflict resolution.

Jews first lived in the village in 1697.
By 1857 there were 650.
By 1934 all but 19 had moved away.
In March 1938, with the Anschluss, these 19 were driven out of their hometown.

This is part of the history in German.
But you can read more in English:
A factual and brief history of the Jews of Stadtschlaining in the Austrian Archive of Synagogues.
or
A fascinating story of what one American woman found when researching her grandmother's life in this town.

(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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An unusual synagogue and a talking donkey

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The Friday sun will soon set and you can feel the quiet and calm of the Sabbath Eve settling down on Israel (despite the fact that three Grad rockets were just fired into the south from Sinai).

Here is an unusual synagogue we found in Tel Aviv's historic Neve Zedek neighborhood exactly two weeks ago.
Look at those two arms coming out of the wall,  opening a Torah scroll case! 

And on the ground floor is this tree sprouting the most important Jewish books: Tanach (the Hebrew Bible), Talmud, Shulchan Aruch, Zohar (mystical Judaism), and the Siddur (our prayerbook).

The sign says the congregation, Sukkat Shalom, was founded in 1913. 
The door has the twelve tribes of Israel.

Inscribed above is "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!"
This is the famous blessing which came out of Balaam's mouth when he was sent by the king Balak to curse the Israelites, and it is this week's Torah portion.
For donkey pictures and the biblical story of Balaam's talking ass, please see my posts here and here.
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Shabbat shalom.
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Synagogue in a bomb shelter

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When our counteroffensive, Operation Protective Edge, began on July 8,  I remember the Home Front Command instructed people not to gather for public prayer in synagogues that lacked a missile-proof room.

The Conservative congregation of Meitar is lucky then.
Even in normal times they meet in this purpose-built bomb shelter.
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Here are some interesting guidelines from various rabbis on how to observe the Sabbath while under fire:
1. from Chief Rabbi Lau 
2. from Tzohar
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(Linking to OurWorld Tuesday.)

The Struma synagogue and museum

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Here is another of the three  Beer Sheva synagogues we heard about during Israel Heritage Preservation Week. 
Last week for Shavuot  I blogged about its beautiful Torah scrolls and the colorful tablets of the Ten Commandments glass door.

The bima, where the Torah scroll is unrolled and chanted, is in the center.

But the pulpit is right in front of the aron kodesh, the Torah ark.

The pews are forward-facing, typical for Ashkenazi synagogues (and not like the ones we saw in yesterday's post.

Arie Raiter, President of the Struma Museum and Synagogue, one of the founding members of the congregation, told us all about the history of the building.

If you look at the photos again, you might see that the front of the sanctuary has like the ribs of a ship's bow and along the side walls are "portals," like windows of a ship.

One story made the biggest impression on me (members of the tour group, Israel heritage lovers, also rolled their eyes):
Once he caught two neighborhood boys throwing stones at the windows. 
He asked them "How can you do such a thing to a synagogue which is named in memory of the holy Jewish martyrs of the sunken ship Struma?!"
But they didn't know what he was talking about. 
He took one to the boy's school and confronted his teacher; to Arie's dismay, the teacher had never heard of the Struma.
He then went to the school principal but  was shocked that even she did not know the Struma.

I think that is when he saw the need to put up explaining signs outside and also to make a library of Holocaust books and a history museum about the Struma on the top floor of the synagogue.

The 1942  sinking of the "illegal" immigrant ship was a tragic and seminal event which shaped the ethos of the not-yet-independent state of Israel.
For the founding generation of Israel it signaled their mission to reach a position of strength so that such injustices against Jews could never again be carried out. 
But it is a modern tragedy that younger generations apparently are not being taught about the Struma and its lesson for us. 

Here is the short version from Yad Vashem Shoah Resource Center:

On December 12, 1941, 769 Jews boarded the Struma in the Romanian
port of Constanta. They had been witness to the massacre of Jews in
Bessarabia and Bukovina, and were desperately trying to escape Europe. The
Struma's first stop was to be Istanbul, Turkey---despite the fact that the
passengers had no visas for Turkey. The boat was hardly seaworthy, and
barely reached Istanbul. When it finally arrived, the passengers were not
allowed to disembark. For ten weeks, they were restricted to the boat. The
Turks refused to transfer them to a transit camp on land, even though the
camp would have been funded in complete by Jewish organizations. In
addition, nothing could convince the British authorities to admit these refugees
into Palestine, because they did not want to set a precedent for similar
escapes.
On February 23, 1942 the Turkish authorities took matters into their own
hands: they towed the old ship to the open sea, without fuel, food, or water.
Within hours, the ship was torpedoed, most probably by a Soviet submarine
that mistook it for an enemy German ship. All but one refugee drowned.

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 But I suggest you read the full story at http://www.jewishgen.org/romsig/Strumah.html
or at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struma_disaster

And another telling of the Struma history  is more emotional and thought-provoking regarding Israel's future:
http://sarahhonig.com/2012/02/24/another-tack-lessons-from-the-floating-coffin-another-tack-lessons-from-the-floating-coffin/
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(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)
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Yemenite synagogue

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So during Heritage Preservation Week we got a free guided tour of three older synagogues, all in the Alef neighborhood of Beer Sheva.
In the whole city there are over 200 synagogues.

Welcome to the Abba Shalom Shabazi Yemenite Synagogue.

 Women sit in the upper balcony and can look down on the men below.
The pews are along the sides, and the reading desk for the Torah scroll is in the center.

The scroll is kept in a  hard case, a tik,  Sephardic-style, in contrast to the Ashkenazi custom of covering the scroll with a soft mantle, a me'il.

This Yemenite congregation has many beautiful Torahs,

all kept in the aron kodesh, the holy ark.
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Jews lived in Yemen ever since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
 Between June 1949 and September 1950, the overwhelming majority of Yemen's Jewish population was transported to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet.
So many of the new immigrants were directed to Beer Sheva that they needed to build two Yemenite synagogues in the city.
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More about Yemenite Jews in Wikipedia.
UPDATE! -- In a secret mission at the end of March 2016 some of the last Jews who remained in Yemen  were brought to Israel!  Read the story here.
Only about fifty Jews still want to live in Yemen.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.)

Walking through the Ten Commandments

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Today is the happy holiday of Shavuot, also called the Festival of Weeks, Pentecost, the holiday of the First Fruits and of the reaping of grain.
Shavuot also became known as the day on which God gave the Torah on Mt. Sinai.
It is a mitsvah for every Jew to stand and hear the Ten Commandments read in the synagogue today. 

During the recent Heritage Preservation Week, the head man of  Struma Synagogue in Beer Sheva showed our tour group the Torah scrolls in their holy ark.

And with a big smile he explained that when they were building the synagogue the 1950s movie "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston was popular, and he was inspired by it to design the back wall and door as the two tablets!

You are welcome to see my other posts about Ruth and Naomi and about cheese and cheesemakers, which are also part of the Shavuot tradition.
See more about the Struma synagogue at my other post.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday  and   Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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The Vittorio Veneto Synagogue

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From inside, looking out.

From outside, looking in.

Enough desert and Beer Sheva Brutalism; let's see some Italian Baroque style beauty!
This 17th century interior of a small synagogue in the town of Vittorio Veneto near Venice was transferred to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1965 and was faithfully reconstructed.
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(Linking to Toby's meme  Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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ENTRY into Jewish adulthood

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Entry into Jewish adulthood--a neighbor's bar mitzvah ceremony.
At the synagogue in the moshav/village where I used to live, in the Jerusalem Hills.

City Daily Photo bloggers' Theme Day today is about "entry."
See what entries others posted at the group's website.

Wikipedia explains:

According to Jewish law, when Jewish boys become 13 years old, they become accountable for their actions and become a bar mitzvah. A girl becomes a bat mitzvah at the age of 12. Most non-Orthodox Jews celebrate a girl's bat mitzvah in the same way as a boy's bar mitzvah.
 Prior to reaching bar or bat mitzvah, the child's parents hold the responsibility for the child's actions. After this age, the boys and girls bear their own responsibility for Jewish ritual law, tradition, and ethics, and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life. Traditionally, the father of the bar mitzvah gives thanks to God that he is no longer punished for the child's sins (Genesis Rabba, Toldot 23:11).
In addition to being considered accountable for their actions from a religious perspective, b'nai mitzvah may be counted towards a minyan (prayer quorum) and may lead prayer and other religious services in the family and the community.

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Synagogue with a view!

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This is one of the dozen synagogues in Meitar.
It is the closest one to my place but I have never been inside it.
It's at the end of a street, on the edge of town. 

The windows in the sanctuary look out and down on the desert! 
If I went to services I'd probably be gazing out at nature instead of focusing on the prayerbook or the sermon. 
Maybe I should try sometime.
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(Linking to Toby's meme, Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Moving up

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In the previous posts we've been talking about the synagogue of Nevatim in the Negev,
the one built by the resident Jews,  who originally immigrated from Cochin, India.

Now come up the stairs to the women's section of the synagogue.
What surprised me to hear from Miri, our guide, was that in their Cochin tradition,  women have long been taught to read Torah!

So the Torah scroll in taken from the holy ark on the main floor and brought up to the upper gallery to this table  where the Torah portion of the day is chanted for all to hear--both the women in the balcony and the men below ("out of the depths I cried to You . . . ").

I am not saying that women chant the Torah on Shabbat (our guide did not say that), but with their learning it is natural for them to want to be close to the scroll.

The vertical blinds of the mechitsa screen  look quite see-through and easy to open, if the women are so inclined.  

Our tour group from Meitar learned a lot of good things at Nevatim, both in their synagogue and at their Cochin Jewish Heritage Center.
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UPDATE: The Times of Israel just now published this article about a new historical novel about the Baghdadi Jews of Kolkata  (Kolkata/Calcutta  being on the opposite side of the Indian sub-continent from Cochin).
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