Ben Ezra Synagogue
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Overview
Mar Girgis street Down Town, CairoThe Ben Ezra Synagogue was originally a church that was destroyed and the ruins given to Abraham ben Ezra, a 12th century rabbi of Jerusalem.
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Description
Jewish history in Egypt dates back to the era of the Old Testament and the stories of Moses and the persecution by the Pharaohs. After the Roman expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem in the first century AD, Alexandria became the world's most important center for Judaism. As early as the early 20th century the Jewish community in Egypt remained significant and prominent. This changed dramatically with the creation of Israel in 1948. Those Jews that had not left by choice were forced out of Egypt when the country went to war against the newly formed Jewish state.
Monuments of the long history of the Jews in Egypt are few and, of those, Ben Ezra Synagogue is the oldest. Legends link it with Moses. The tradition has this as the place where the Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes. But in fact the synagogue was formerly a church, built in the 8th century.
Around 300 years later, the church was destroyed and the site and its ruins given to Abraham Ben Ezra, a 12th century rabbi of Jerusalem. Repairs in the 19th century unearthed hundreds of Hebrew manuscripts from the synagogue's intact geniza, or treasury.
In Egypt any paper bearing the name of God had to be preserved and this has resulted in a legacy of thousands of documents dating largely from the 11th and 12th centuries. Together they amount to a minutely detailed chronicle of life in medieval Cairo.
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Opening Hours: Daily 8:00 - 16:00
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