Charting my visits to synagogues in Dublin and around the world

The cupola of the Neue Synagoge or New Synagogue in the Spandau area of Berlin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Yehuda Amichai’s ‘Poem Without an End,’ translated from the Hebrew by Chana Bloch, is quoted by Simon Schama in his Belonging, the Story of the Jews, 1492-1900 (Penguin, 2017):

Poem Without an End (‘שיר אינסופי’)

Inside the brand-new museum
there’s an old synagogue.
Inside the synagogue
is me.
Inside me
my heart.
Inside my heart
a museum.
Inside the museum
a synagogue,
inside it
me,
inside me
my heart,
inside my heart
a museum.

Over the past ten years or so, I have visited and blogged about synagogues in at least a dozen countries.

Apart from visiting synagogues in Ireland, I have visited and blogged about more than 40 synagogues and the sites of former synagogues in Albania (1), Austria (1), the Czech Republic (6), England (5), Germany (2), Greece (5), Italy (7), Morocco (2), Poland (7), Portugal (4), Spain (5).

Before I began this blog, I had also visited synagogues and Jewish communities in Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel and the West Bank, Romania and Turkey.

But I have also visited many synagogues and former synagogues in Ireland, including Dublin, Derry, Limerick and Waterford.

I have realised that I have not blogged about Dublin’s synagogues, past and present, with the same attention as I have written about synagogues and other countries. So, as I prepare a blog series on the synagogues of Dublin, I have put together a list of my blog postings on synagogues.

I plan to up-date this list as this Dublin series is posted over the next few weeks, and hope to up-date it in the future as I write about visits to other synagogues around the world.

Albania’s first synagogue, built in Onchesmos or Saranda in the fourth or fifth century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Albania:

1, Saranda: the fifth-century synagogue of Onchesmos (29 August 2019).

Austria:

1, Vienna: not available yet.

China:

1, The Jewish community of Hong Kong (19 April 2006).

The wrought-iron rococo grille that adorns the bimah in the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague, seen from the women’s gallery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Czech Republic:

Prague:

1, The ‘Old-New’ Synagogue (29 January 2019)).

2, The High Synagogue (30 January 2019).

3, The Maisel Synagogue (30 January 2019).

4, The Klausen Synagogue (31 January 2019).

5, The Spanish Synagogue (31 January 2019).

6, The Pinkas Synagogue (1 February 2019).

Old Jewry stands in the heart of the original Jewish ghetto in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

England:

Cambridge:

1, The Cambridge Synagogue and Jewish Student Centre (20 July 2013)

London:

2, The site in Old Jewry of the Great Synagogue of London until 1271 (29 April 2016).

3, Kehillas Ya’akov, Commercial Road, Stepney (1 February 2018).

4, The site of a synagogue at Threadneedle Street, built in 1231 (17 February 2019).

Peterborough:

5, Peterborough Hebrew Congregation, formerly on 142 Cobden Avenue (17 August 2019).

The site of Berlin’s first synagogue at Heidereutergasse, dedicated in 1714 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Germany:

Berlin:

1, The New Synagogue, Oranienburger strasse (13 September 2018).

2, The Alten (Old) Synagogue (31 December 2018).

The bimah in the Etz Hayyim Synagogue, Chania (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Greece:

Chania:

1, The Etz Hayyim Synagogue (18 June 2018)

Corfu:

2, The Nuova or New Synagogue, Corfu (24 August 2019).

Rethymnon:

3, The site of the mediaeval synagogue (9 June 2018).

Rhodes:

4, The Kahal Shalom Synagogue (25 June 1999).

Thessaloniki:

5, The Monasterioton Synagogue, Syngrou Street (8 April 2018).

Ireland:

Derry:

1, The former synagogue in Kennedy Place, Derry (24 May 2019).

Limerick:

2, The former synagogue at 63 Wolfe Tone Street (2 July 2017).

3, The former synagogue at Hillview, Wolfe Tone Street (2 July 2017).

Waterford:

4, The former synagogue at 56 Manor Street, Waterford (15 March 2019)

Inside the Scuola Spagnola in Venice, founded around 1580 by Spanish and Portuguese speaking Jews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Italy:

Bologna:

1, The synagogue on Via Mario Finzi (17 November 2017).

Rome:

2, The Great Synagogue of Rome (7 January 2017).

Venice:

3, The Scuola Spagnola (19 November 2018).

4, The Scuola Grande Tedesca (19 November 2018).

5, The Scola Levantina (19 November 2018).

6, The Scuola Canton (9 November 2018).

7, The Scuola Italiana (9 November 2018).

The Synagogue Rebbi Akiva on Rue Synagogue was originally built in the mid-19th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Morocco:

Tangier:

1, The Synagogue Rebbi Akiva (30 October 2018).

2, The Moshe Nahon Synagogue (30 October 2018).

The Old Synagogue built in Kraków 1407 is the oldest Jewish house of prayer in Poland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Poland:

Kraków:

1, The Old Synagogue (Synagoga Stara), Szeroka Street (12 November 2016).

2, The Remu'h Synagogue, Szeroka Street (12 November 2016).

3, The Wolf Popper Synagogue, Szeroka Street (12 November 2016).

4, The High Synagogue or Synagoga Wysoka, Jozefa Street (12 November 2016).

5, The Isaak Jakubowicz Synagogue, Kupa Street (12 November 2016).

6, The Kupa Synagogue, Kupa Street (12 November 2016).

7, The Tempel Synagogue, Miodowa Street (12 November 2016).

The Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue in Porto is one of the largest in western Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Portugal:

Porto:

1, The Kadoorie Mekor Haim (‘Spring of Life’) Synagogue (6 February 2019).

2, The site of the first synagogue in Porto at Igreja dos Grilos (12 February 2019).

3, The site of the 14th century synagogue at Rua do Comércio do Porto (12 February 2019).

4, The site of the synagogue at the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Vitória (12 February 2019).

The women’s balcony above the entrance to the synagogue in Córdoba (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Spain:

Barcelona:

1, The site of the old synagogue at the Church of Sant Jaume on Calle Ferran (8 May 2016).

Córdoba:

2, The synagogue built by Simon Majeb in 1315 (7 June 2019).

Málaga:

3, The synagogue and Sephardic heritage centre, Plaza de Judería (5 June 2019).

Seville:

4, Former synagogue at the Church of Santa María la Blanca (27 October 2018) and here

5, The Jewish Interpretive Centre, Ximenez de Enisco (27 October 2018)

Tomorrow: The synagogues of Dublin: 1, Crane Lane, Dame Street.