The Great German Synagogue ( it, Scuola Grande Tedesca) is one of five

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

s in the

Jewish Ghetto In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry, ''juiverie'', ''Judengasse'', Jewynstreet, Jewtown, or proto-ghetto) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Established in 1528, it is the oldest Venetian synagogue. The synagogue was most recently restored between 2016 and 2017 by the

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and trainin ...

. No longer used for regular worship, it is open to the public through the

Jewish Museum of Venice Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

History

The Great German Synagogue is one of the three synagogues located in the ''Ghetto Nuovo'' (the oldest part of the Venetian Ghetto, established on 29 March 1516), together with the '' Scuola Canton'' and '' Scuola Italiana''. It was built in 1528The synagogues
''Jewish Museum of Venice''. Retrieved July 14, 2016. by members of the local

Ashkenazi Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

community. A stone plaque on the west wall of the building records its construction at the expense of two donors. Like the other four synagogues in Venice, it was termed a ''scuola'' ("School"), rather than ''sinagoga'' ("Synagogue"), in the same way in which Ashkenazi Jews refer to the synagogue as the ''shul'' () in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

. The Great German Synagogue was the first public synagogue erected in the ''Ghetto Nuovo''. Together with the nearby ''Scuola Canton'', completed in 1532, it stands as a testament to the influence of the Ashkenazi community in the early years of the Ghetto, before the arrival of the much more affluent Jewish merchants from Spain and the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

in the 1550s.Laskin, David (March 9, 2016)
500 Years of Jewish Life in Venice
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Retrieved May 05, 2022. Along with the other synagogues of Venice, it ceased to be regularly used in October 1917, when the local Jewish community was forced to disband; at the same time, administration of all the Jewish places of worship was taken over by a single institution, the ''Templi Israelitici Uniti''.

Architecture

Built on top of a preexisting structure, the prayer hall features an irregular shape. The bimah was originally placed in the middle of the room in accordance with the traditional "central bimah" configuration, and only later moved to the north end of the sanctuary.

Gallery

File:Great German Synagogue, ark.jpg, The ark File:Great German Synagogue, bimah.jpg, The bimah File:Great German Synagogue, women's gallery.jpg, The women's gallery File:Great German Synagogue, liagò.jpg, The ark projecting over the rear canal

Notes

References

Cited literature

* * * * * * * * Orthodox synagogues in Italy Jews and Judaism in Venice Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Italy Ashkenazi synagogues 16th-century synagogues 1520s establishments in the Republic of Venice Synagogues in Venice Religious buildings and structures completed in 1528 German diaspora in Europe German-Jewish diaspora {{italy-synagogue-stub