The Great Synagogue of Stockholm ( sv, Stockholms stora synagoga, he, בית הכנסת הגדול של שטוקהולם ''Bet ha-Knesset ha-Gadol shel Stokholm'') is located on a small street called Wahrendorffsgatan, close to the park

Kungsträdgården Kungsträdgården (Swedish language, Swedish for "King's Garden") is a park in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is colloquially known as ''Kungsan''. The park's central location and its outdoor cafés makes it one of the most popular hangouts ...

Norrmalm Norrmalm is a city district in Stockholm, Sweden. History Norrmalm is part of the larger borough of Norrmalm (''Norrmalms stadsdelsområde''). The southern part of the district, Lower Norrmalm (''Nedre Norrmalm''), also known as City, const ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

. It was built 1867-1870 according to designs made in 1862 by the architect

Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander (June 23, 1816 – May 9, 1881) was a Swedish architect and artist. Biography Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He was the son of Georg Fredrik Scholander (1785-1825) and Karin Nyström (1786 ...

. The building has been called a "paraphrase over Oriental motifs" (''Nordisk familjebok'' 26, col. 147

, and it is listed in the Swedish registry of national historical buildings. It was preceded by an earlier synagogue at

Tyska Brunnsplan Tyska Brunnsplan (Swedish: "German Well Square") is a small, triangular public square in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is located in the junction between the streets Svartmangatan and Själagårdsgatan, the former lea ...

in the Stockholm Old Town (now the Jewish Museum on 19,

Själagårdsgatan Själagårdsgatan (Swedish: "The Charitable Institution Street") is a street in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden. Stretching south from Köpmangatan to Tyska Brunnsplan, it forms a parallel street to Baggensgatan. It cro ...

), used 1790-1870, and services were held in an even earlier location on

Köpmanbrinken Köpmanbrinken (Swedish: "Merchant's Slope") is a street composed of two slopes, in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden. Both slopes connect the street Österlånggatan west up to the small Köpmantorget and the street Köpmangata ...

near

Köpmantorget Köpmantorget (Swedish: "Merchant's Square") is a small public square in Gamla stan, the old town in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is located between the street Köpmangatan to the west and between two slopes collectively named Köpmanbrinken, bo ...

in the Old town 1787-1790. The ''Judiska biblioteket,'' the Jewish Community

Library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

, is located beneath the Great Synagogue of Stockholm. Its multilingual collection consists of books in Swedish, German, English, French, Hebrew, and other languages. It includes the library of Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis (1869–1951), who was Chief Rabbi of Sweden from 1914 to 1951. The Library also hosts occasional exhibits, such as the 2007 exhibit of the

Friedrich Kellner August Friedrich Kellner (1 February 1885 – 4 November 1970) was a German mid-level official and diarist who worked as a justice inspector in Laubach from 1933 to 1945. Kellner was an infantryman in a Hessian regiment during the First Worl ...

World War II

diary A diary is a written or audiovisual record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital. A personal ...

which chronicles the years of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

of European

Jewry 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 ...

. A monument to the memory of victims of the Holocaust, with more than 8,000 names of victims who were relatives of Swedish Jews, was dedicated by the King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustav, at the synagogue in 1998. In 2017 a new ''

mikvah Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or (Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purifi ...

'' was built in the basement of the synagogue.

Hebrew inscriptions

Decorative inscriptions in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

are etched and painted into the stonework of the Great Synagogue. On the front facade is written, ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, from Exodus 25:8-9, "And make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." On the rear facade are two inscriptions; בית הכנסת הגדול של שטוקהולם, the building's formal name ("The Great Synagogue of Stockholm"), under which is written Isaiah 57:19, בורא ניב שפתים שלום שלום לרחוק ולקרוב אמר יי ורפאתיו, "Peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him that is near, saith the LORD that createth the fruit of the lips; and I will heal him."

References

Nordisk familjebok
s.v. "Synagoga"

s.v. "Stockholm"

External links

The Great Synagogue of Stockholm
from Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot {{Coord, 59, 19, 54.81, N, 18, 4, 27.15, E, display=title, region:SE_type:landmark Ashkenazi Jewish culture in Sweden Ashkenazi synagogues Conservative Judaism in Europe

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 ...

Conservative synagogues Jews and Judaism in Stockholm Synagogues in Sweden 1870 establishments in Sweden Synagogues completed in 1870 Moorish Revival synagogues