Ben Ezra Synagogue

Ben Ezra Synagogue

The Ben Ezra Synagogue, also known as El-Geniza or of the Palestinians, is located on the site where legend has it that the baby Moses was found, and saved from the waters. That’s the thing about these lands, you never know what historical landmark you are standing on.

Ben Ezra Synagogue history 

In the first place, The Ben Ezra Synagogue is the oldest synagogue in Egypt. It was supposedly built on the site where Moses called upon God to put an end to the hail and pestilence. The synagogue is especially famous for the Geniza (meaning storehouse) documents stored there since 1041, rediscovered after 1864 and since 1896 located primarily in the Cambridge University Library.

These documents – court depositions, deeds, titles, commercial contracts, petitions, letters, inventories, religious questions and judgments – represent the most complete documentation of any society unearthed.

As transcribed by S. D. Goitien in A Mediterranean Society, they describe al-Fustat as a vibrant capitalist society engaged in trade throughout the Mediterranean. Immigrants from North Africa and Palestine were attracted by the religious tolerance of the Fatimid regime and the affluence of El Fustat.

Design

Its design simulates a Roman basilica, a rectangle 17 meters long and 11.3 meters wide, with two floors: the first floor for men and the upper balcony for women.

The main floor is divided by steel bars and in the center is a Bimah (podium located in the center of the sanctuary, as was the altar in the Holy Temple) of octagonal marble for the reading of the Torah (text containing the law and the identity heritage of the Jewish people).

The synagogue is decorated with geometric motifs and a large Star of David in the center of the ceiling, mixing Roman styles with Ottoman floral details in gold and mother-of-pearl.

Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo

Finely Like most synagogues in Egypt, the site now remains only a tourist attraction following the abandonment of the almost total Jewish community during the 1950s.

Also after the founding of Israel and the Free Officers’ Revolution. Nevertheless, this site retains great importance in the contemporary history of Judaism.

The 19th-century discovery of a voluminous archive of documents, treasured by the synagogue, recording the transaction history of Cairo‘s Jewish community since the 11th century, provided one of the most comprehensive accounts of this community’s local history.These documents are now held by the University of Cambridge.