Synagogue
religious building at the center of a local organization where a Jewish (or rarely Samaritan) community gathers for prayer, education, social assistance or ceremonies
A synagogue or synagog, 'Beit Kneset'—"house of gathering" in Hebrew, also called a shul (meaning school in Yiddish) or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews or Samaritans.
It serves as a house of prayer. It includes a main sanctuary with the Torah ark where the Torah scrolls are kept (called an Holy Closet aron qodesh (Hebrew: אָרוֹן קׄדֶש) by Ashkenazi Jews and a hekhal (היכל) by Sephardic Jews), and a stage called bema in front of it as well as raised galleries for female worshipers. Synagogues have religious services or ceremonies such as Daily prayers, Shabbat prayers (Saturday) weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs. Synagogues often also contain study rooms, social halls, administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious and Hebrew studies, and spaces for community gatherings. They frequently display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork alongside items of Jewish historical significance or exhibits about the synagogue itself.
Synagogues are buildings used for Jewish prayer, study, assembly, and reading of the Torah. The Torah (Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses) is traditionally read in its entirety over a period of a year in weekly portions during services, or in some synagogues on a triennial cycle. However, the edifice of a synagogue as such is not essential for holding Jewish worship. Halakha (Jewish law from the Mishnah—the "Oral Torah") states that communal Jewish worship can be carried out wherever a minyan, a group of at least 10 Jewish adults, is assembled, often (but not necessarily) led by a rabbi.
“Synagogue” enters the record as religious building at the center of a local organization where a Jewish (or rarely Samaritan) community gathers for prayer, education, social assistance or ceremonies. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Synagogue, religious and building can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Synagogue” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Synagogue, religious and building provides the most credible route into that argument.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34627. The Library of Congress control number is sh85131580. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Synagogue”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Synagogue primary sources, Synagogue archive and Synagogue research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Synagogue”?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Synagogue” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.