Ramban Synagogue

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Ramban Synagogue

The Ramban Synagogue is the oldest active synagogue

Synagogue

A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer.Synagogues usually have a large hall for prayer , smaller rooms for study and sometimes a social hall and offices....
in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was founded by Nahmanides

Nahmanides

Nahmanides, also known as Rabbi Moses ben Nachman , was a Catalonia rabbi, philosophy, physician, Kabbalah, and Jewish commentaries on the Bible....
(Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman, whose name is often abbreviated as Ramban) in 1267. Today it is located at the corner of Ha-Yehudim Street and the square in the Jewish Quarter

Jewish Quarter

The Jewish Quarter is one of the four traditional quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. The 45,000 square meter area lies in the southeastern sector of the walled city, and stretches from the Gates in Jerusalem's Old City Walls in the south, along the Armenian Quarter on the west, up to the Cardo in the north and extends to the Western W...
.
foundation

Foundation (architecture)

A foundation is a structure that transfers loads to the earth. Foundations are generally broken into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations....
of the building comprises vault

Vault (architecture)

A Vault is an architecture term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert a thrust that require a counter Friction....
s resting on Romanesque

Romanesque architecture

Romanesque architecture is the term that is used to describe the architecture of Middle Ages Europe which evolved into the Gothic architecture style beginning in the 12th century....
and Byzantine

Byzantine architecture

Byzantine architecture is the architecture of the Byzantine Empire. The empire gradually emerged as a distinct artistic and cultural entity from what is today referred to as the Roman Empire after AD 330, when the Roman Emperor Constantine I moved the capital of the Roman Empire east from Rome to Byzantium....
capitals

Capital (architecture)

In several traditions of architecture including Classical architecture, the capital forms the crowning member of a column or a pilaster. The capital projects on each side as it rises, in order to support the abacus and unite the form of the latter with the circular shaft of the column....
. Along with the fact that there are no Gothic

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture which flourished during the high and late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
or Islamic

Islamic architecture

Islamic architecture encompasses a wide range of both secular and religious styles from the History of Islam to the present day, influencing the design and construction of buildings and structures in Islamic culture....
architectural features

Architecture

The term architecture can refer to a process, a profession or documentation.As a process, architecture is the activity of designing and construction buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter....
, this suggests that the original building predates the Crusader period

History of Palestine

The history of the Southern Levant is the account of events in the greater geographic area in the Southern Levant....
.

The synagogue is located three meters below street level, to comply with Muslim restrictions for Dhimmi

Dhimmi

A dhimmi is a non-Muslim subject of a state governed in accordance with sharia. The term connotes an obligation of the state to protect the individual, including the individual's life, property, and freedom of religion and worship, and required loyalty to the empire, and a poll tax known as the jizya....
houses of prayer not to be higher than mosques.
r the Disputation of Barcelona

Disputation of Barcelona

The Disputation of Barcelona was held at the royal palace of King James I of Aragon in the presence of the King, his court, and many prominent ecclesiastical dignitaries and knights, between Dominican Order Friar Pablo Christiani, a convert from Judaism to Christianity, and Rabbi Nachmanides ....
, Nahmanides was exiled from Aragon

Aragon

Aragon is an autonomous communities of Spain of Spain. Located in northeastern Spain, the region comprises three provinces of Spain from north to south: Huesca , Zaragoza , and Teruel ....
, and in 1267 he made aliyah

Aliyah

Aliyah refers to Jewish immigration to Greater Israel. The opposite action, Jewish emigration from Israel, is referred to as Yerida ....
to the Land of Israel

Land of Israel

For other uses, see Israel The Land of Israel is the region which, according to the Hebrew Bible, was promised by God to the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson....
.

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Encyclopedia

The Ramban Synagogue is the oldest active synagogue

Synagogue

Nahmanides

Jewish Quarter

Features

The foundation

Foundation (architecture)

A foundation is a structure that transfers loads to the earth. Foundations are generally broken into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations....
of the building comprises vault

Vault (architecture)

A Vault is an architecture term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert a thrust that require a counter Friction....
s resting on Romanesque

Romanesque architecture

Byzantine architecture

Capital (architecture)

Gothic architecture

Islamic architecture

Architecture

History of Palestine

Dhimmi

History

13th century

After the Disputation of Barcelona

Disputation of Barcelona

Aragon

Aliyah

Aliyah refers to Jewish immigration to Greater Israel. The opposite action, Jewish emigration from Israel, is referred to as Yerida ....
to the Land of Israel

Land of Israel

Yishuv

Yishuv or Ha-Yishuv A distinction is sometimes drawn between the Old Yishuv and the New Yishuv.The Old Yishuv refers to all the Jews living there before the aliyah of 1882 by the Zionist movement....
of Jerusalem devastated by the Crusades

Crusades

The Crusades were a series of religious war waged by much of Christian Europe against external and internal opponents. Crusades were fought mainly against Muslims, though campaigns were also directed against Paganism Slavic peoples, Jews, Eastern Orthodox Church, Mongols, Catharism, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and political enemi...
:

Seventy two years old, he undertook the effort to rebuild the Jewish community and chose a ruined house on Mount Zion

Mount Zion

Mount Zion is a hill just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The term "Zion" became a synecdoche referring to the entire city of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel....
to reconstruct it as a synagogue. A number of Jews moved to Jerusalem after hearing of Nahmanides' arrival. The Torah scroll

Sefer Torah

A Sefer Torah is a specially hand-written copy of the Torah or Pentateuch, which is the holiest book within Judaism and venerated by Jews. It must meet extremely strict standards of production....
s that were evacuated to Shechem

Shechem

Shechem was Canaanite city mentioned in the Amarna letters, and later became an Israelite city in the tribe of Manasseh. It was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel....
before the Mongol invasion

Mongol invasions

The Mongol invasions progressed throughout the 13th century, resulting in the vast Mongol Empire covering much of Asia by 1300.The Mongol Empire emerged in the course of the 13th century by a series of conquests and invasions throughout Central Asia and Western Asia, reaching Eastern Europe by the 1240s....
were returned. In three weeks, for Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah is a Jewish holiday commonly referred to as the "Judaism New Year." It is observed on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, as ordained in the Torah, in ....
, the synagogue was ready for use.

16th century

In 1586, the synagogue was closed under the order of the Turkish governor of Jerusalem. Subsequently, the Sephardi

Sephardi Jews

Sephardi Jews are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa, usually defined in contrast to Ashkenazi or Mizrahi Jews....
community established their center in the adjacent place, where the academy belonging to the tanna

Tannaim

The Tannaim were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 70-200 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 130 years....
Yochanan ben Zakai

Yochanan ben Zakai

Yochanan ben Zakai was one of the tannaim, an important Jewish sage in the era of the Second Temple, and a primary contributor to the core text of Judaism, the Mishnah....
was said to have stood during the Second Temple

Second Temple

The Second Temple was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem which stood between 516 BCE and 70 CE. During this time, it was the center of Judaism worship, which focused on the sacrifices known as the korbanot....
period. Today the Yochanan ben Zakai Synagogue stands there.

19th century

In 1835, the leaders of the community managed to obtain a permission from the Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
authorities for the renovation of the synagogues, which were unified into a single unit.

20th century

Over the years, the building has been the home to the Sephardi community, was converted into a mosque

Mosque

A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. Muslims often refer to the mosque by its Arabic name, masjid, ? . The word "mosque" in English refers to all types of buildings dedicated for Islamic worship, although there is a distinction in Arabic between the smaller, privately owned mosque and the larger, "collective" mosque ,...
after being confiscated by a Mufti

Mufti

A mufti is an Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . A muftiat or diyanet is a council of muftis....
, and was used as a flour mill and a cheese

Cheese

Cheese is a food consisting of proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cattle, Water Buffalo, goats, or sheep's milk. It is produced by Coagulation of the milk protein casein....
factory. Today it is used by the Ashkenazi

Ashkenazi Jews

File:Juden 1881.JPGAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish ethnic divisions of the Rhineland in the west of Germany....
community.

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War

1948 Arab-Israeli War

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known by the Israelis predominantly as War of Independence and War of Liberation , and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe , was the first in a series of wars fought between the Declaration of Independence State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict....
, the building was destroyed by the Arab Legion

Arab Legion

The Arab Legion was the regular army of Transjordan and then Jordan in the early part of the 20th Century....
. As a result of the 1967 Six-Day War

Six-Day War

In the Six-Day War of June 5-10, 1967, Israel defeated the armies of the neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In Arabic, the war is called ....
, Jews regained their right to the property, and 700 years after the Ramban revived the ancient building, the synagogue was reopened.

External links

(Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Virtual Library

The Jewish Virtual Library is an online encyclopedia published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise . It was established in 1993 and is a comprehensive Web site covering Israel, the Jewish people and Jewish culture....
)
(sephardiccouncil.org)
(aish.com)