Why a Synagogue Is Called a Synagogue

Table Of Content

• Synagogues, Shuls and Temples
• Arab States That Allied With Israel and U.S. for Iran Attack Now Face Consequences
• Discovering Jewish Los Angeles
• Violence at UCLA will only produce more violence. A remarkable Palestinian peace activist showed me an alternate way
• Protesters met by police at UT Austin, USC
• Long Beach weighs new hiring process as almost a quarter of jobs sit vacant
• History

In fact, in rabbinical literature, the synagogue is sometimes referred to as the "little Temple." At Columbia, student protesters gathered on campus early Wednesday for another day of demonstrations while just outside the gates protesters were chanting in support of the students. After two years working on conceptual and design schemes, Rattner spent another year engaged in the window’s fabrication in the Paris studio of stained-glass artist Jean Barillet (where other American synagogue stained glass has also been fabricated). At 40 feet wide and three stories high, it was devised to fill the entire eastern wall of the synagogue. Jutting into the prayer space from the far-left corner of the window, Rattner incorporated the ark that would house the Torah scrolls. He surrounded it with flames – integrated into the glass – leaping up and out, drawing attention to the presence of God in the very heart of the sanctuary.

Synagogues, Shuls and Temples

The surviving medieval synagogues in Budapest and Prague are typical Gothic structures. The oldest dated evidence of a synagogue is from the 3rd century bce, but synagogues doubtless have an older history. Some scholars think that the destruction of Solomon’s Temple of Jerusalem in 586 bce gave rise to synagogues after private homes were temporarily used for public worship and religious instruction. Before the school issued the statement, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said administrators threatened to bring in police and the National Guard if protesters did not comply with their demands. "We remain steadfast in our convictions and will not be intimidated by the University's disturbing threat of an escalation of violence," the group said in a statement. ∎ California's Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata will be closed Wednesday after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a campus building, the school announced.

Arab States That Allied With Israel and U.S. for Iran Attack Now Face Consequences

"In light of this constructive dialogue, the University will continue conversations for the next 48 hours," the statement said. "We are processing the arrests to distinguish between who were actual students and who were not supposed to be on the ground," said Adams. The station said that at least 10 protesters were taken away by police with their hands zip-tied by officers.

Discovering Jewish Los Angeles

A synagogue,[a] also called a shul[b] or a temple,[c] is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It has a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, choir performances, and children's plays. They also have rooms for study, social halls, administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious and Hebrew studies, and many places to sit and congregate. They often display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork alongside items of Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself.

Abu Dhabi’s stunning new multi-faith complex is a mosque, synagogue and church - CNN

Abu Dhabi’s stunning new multi-faith complex is a mosque, synagogue and church.

Posted: Wed, 01 Mar 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

It is as close to the site of the original Sanctuary as Jews can go today. You can see a live picture of the Kotel and learn about it at KotelCam. Many synagogues also have a "Holocaust Torah," a scroll of Torah that survived the Holocaust. Many of them were kept in warehouses in Czechoslovakia or other places for decades after the Holocaust, unused, piled up and rotting.

A song like “How Great Is Our God” has a different meaning during a Stop the Steal protest or a God and Country rally than it does at a Sunday morning worship service. Student protester demands regarding divestment at other campuses have tended to push for a total break with any company that has a relationship with Israel or invests in a company that does. Brown’s vote will be more targeted, with a focus on the 2020 proposal, which made it more appealing for the university to agree to, according to Chris Marsciano, a professor of education policy at Davidson College.

The White House, while expressing support for freedom of assembly, criticized "forcibly taking over buildings" in a statement on Tuesday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Wednesday that about 300 people were arrested. Video from WISC-TV showed police with riot shields pushing against protesters and the protesters pushing back while chanting slogans, including "Free Free Palestine."

Demonstrators, counter-protesters clash at UCLA campus over Israel-Hamas war

A room or building that is used this way can become a dedicated small synagogue or prayer room. Among Ashkenazi Jews they are traditionally called shtiebel (שטיבל, pl. shtiebelekh or shtiebels, Yiddish for "little house"), and are found in Orthodox communities worldwide. Harvard students set up a ring of tents in Harvard Yard midday Wednesday and said they plan to stay put until the school’s administration responds to their demands to divest from funds that support Israel’s military. Students sang and danced in a circle in front of the statue of John Harvard, the school’s namesake, draped with a keffiyeh (scarf), as dozens of others looked on. Biden signed a controversial aid package bill Wednesday that provides, among other things, $17 billion for Israel.

Plaques are often purchased in advance to reserve a spot, keeping family members together. You will find plaques marked "RESERVED" or something like that for this purpose. The plaques commonly give the decedent's name and date of death in both English and Hebrew, though sometimes it is only in one language or without the date.

Now, as in its early years, synagogue members include commuters from Chicago’s nearby suburbs. Each weekday morning prior to the pandemic, Blau attended services at Central Avenue Synagogue, a Chabad-affiliated house of worship near his home in Highland Park, then hopped on the train for a 45-minute ride to his law office in the Loop. In the afternoons, Blau took a quick jaunt from his office to the Loop Synagogue to attend mincha, the afternoon service. The Yiddish of Eastern Europe thus had four different ways of referring to a synagogue, each with its own shade of meaning. A bes-medresh was a shul with a library of religious texts sufficient for serving the entire community for study, and so it was often a large or main synagogue. And to this, in early 19th-century Germany, was added Tempel, a Reform synagogue frequently housed in a grand building and boasting an organ and choir.

Taylor said that in recent years, evangelical worship has become increasingly political, especially as congregations became more polarized in the wake of Trump’s 2016 election. Folks who sing songs like “How Great Is Our God” are more likely to share the same political views than they did when the song was first released in the early 2000s. Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies and author of a forthcoming book about the New Apostolic Reformation, says there’s a reason why activists like Feucht pick popular worship songs to play at their rallies. If Feucht, a musician and worship leader, sang his own songs, which can be more overtly political, no one would sing along — since they are relatively obscure. The head of Brown’s Chabad center, too, praised the school’s administration without commenting on the agreement. “This is a win for protesters in some way, but at the end of the day I sincerely doubt this will affect much of the war effort in Israel,” Marsciano said.

On the three annual pilgrimage festivals — Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot — all Israel was invited to ascend to Jerusalem to offer special sacrifices and celebrate. The Temple also served as an important administrative center of the Jewish people. I spend a lot of time with my family—from Friday night at sundown until Saturday night.

The Ark is generally placed in the front of the room; that is, on the side towards Jerusalem. This curtain is in imitation of the curtain in the Sanctuary in The Temple, and is named for it. During certain prayers, the doors and/or curtain of the Ark may be opened or closed. Opening or closing the doors or curtain is performed by a member of the congregation, and is considered an honor. Synagogues are generally run by a board of directors composed of lay people. They manage and maintain the synagogue and its activities, and hire a rabbi and chazzan (cantor) for the community.