Abuhav Synagogue
synagogue in Safed, Israel
The Abuhav Synagogue (Hebrew: בית הכנסת אבוהב) is a Jewish congregation and synagogue, located in Safed, in the Northern Director of Israel. The synagogue was completed in the 15th century and named in honor of the Spanish kabbalist of the era, Rabbi Isaac Abuhav, and is located on the eponymous Abuhav Lane. Its design is said to be based upon Kabbalah teachings.
History
According to tradition, Rabbi Yitzhak Abuhav, a Sephardic rabbi, designed the synagogue in Europe, and his disciples erected the building in Safed when they arrived in the 1490s after the expulsion from Spain. Another legend claims that the synagogue was transported miraculously from Spain to Safed. There is some abiguity over the identity of Abuhav, as there were two potential candidates the legend could be referring to. The rabbi of Toledo, Spain possessed a Torah scroll that is now housed in its Torah ark.
The synagogue was almost completely destroyed in the 1837 earthquake, only the southern wall containing the arks remained standing and exists today as a remnant of the original building. Local tradition believed that the arks were spared from the damage due to their holiness.
Design
The bimah has six steps representing the six working days of the week; the top level is seventh, representing the Shabbat.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4670542. Authority coordinates are 32.969, 35.491. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1837.
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This entry incorporates text from “Abuhav 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.