(Hebrew: Beit HaKnesset) A place set aside for Jewish communal worship. Unlike a temple, which is conceived as a residence of God and is administered by a priesthood, the synagogue is a community institution, a place of meeting and prayer, administered...

House of worship. The institution of the synagogue may date back to the 6th Century BCE and the *exile in Babylon. After the destruction of the Second *Temple in 70CE, the synagogue became the focus of Jewish community life. Many Temple rituals were...

(Yiddish) *Yiddish word for...

SYNAGOGUE. The origins of the synagogue are obscure and will probably never be known. This is in part because the synagogue developed in a nonrevolutionary manner, its significance recognized only once it was a well-established institution of Jewish...

  Part of a series of articles on Jews and...

On Being a Believing Nonbeliever May the taste of honey linger Under the bitterest tongue. --Adrienne Rich, "At the Jewish New Year" I was born on May 25, 1933--as propitious a date as any future American essayist could hope for....

The Jewish Week 11-30-2001 Reinvigorating Synagogues For many years, synagogues and Jewish federations were competitors for major donors rather than partners promoting Jewish life. That mindset began to change in the last decade as surveys showed assimilation had become a serious problem...

The only synagogue ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has been designated a National Historic Landmark.Beth Sholom, a soaring glass-and-concrete temple just outside Philadelphia, began welcoming worshippers nearly 50 years ago. On Sunday, the National Park Service recognized it as one of the architect's greatest...

Shanghai has started restoration work on one of its two remaining synagogues as part of China's effort to revive Jewish heritage in a city that provided refuge to tens of thousands of Jews during World War II.In another sign of the new interest, a rabbi...