Isaac Mehab Synagogue in Córdoba
Type:
Synagogues
Date:
1314/15
Location or Findspot (Modern-Day Country):
Spain
Description:
Córdoba had a thriving Jewish community that was once the home of the famous doctor-philosopher Maimonides. It must have had several synagogues, but only one survives today. Behind a plain brick facade, a small anteroom has a staircase to the second-floor gallery, probably for women's use; both the anteroom and gallery may have been added later. The main prayer hall is small (approx. 6.5 × 7 m) but very tall. A wide niche in the east wall facing Jerusalem housed the Torah scrolls. To the right of this niche, a founder's inscription records that it was built in the year 75 (i.e., the Hebrew year 5075, or 1314/15) by the otherwise unknown Isaac Moheb, son of the honorable Ephraim, "as a temporary abode." The building is called a "small sanctuary" (from Ezek. 11:16), associating it with the lost Temple (the "house of sanctuary"); the text concludes, "Hasten, O God, to rebuild Jerusalem."
The walls are adorned with biblical inscriptions in Hebrew, plus a few in Arabic. Above the entrance door is "Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter" (Isa. 26:2), and around the Torah niche is Psalm 27:4, about dwelling in "the house of the Lord." Deeply carved stucco reliefs with geometric and vegetal patterns cover the walls in discrete panels. Traces of polychromy are preserved throughout. This decorative program thus resembles that of the Samuel Halevi Synagogue in Toledo and, except for the Hebrew, the Alhambra in Granada. In medieval Spain, wealthy Jews, Muslims, and Christians shared a decorative vocabulary for both religious and domestic architecture.
After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, the Córdoba synagogue was used as a hospital, a chapel, and then a nursery school, which accounts for its damaged condition and the presence of a large painted cross on the west wall.
The walls are adorned with biblical inscriptions in Hebrew, plus a few in Arabic. Above the entrance door is "Open the gates, that the righteous nation may enter" (Isa. 26:2), and around the Torah niche is Psalm 27:4, about dwelling in "the house of the Lord." Deeply carved stucco reliefs with geometric and vegetal patterns cover the walls in discrete panels. Traces of polychromy are preserved throughout. This decorative program thus resembles that of the Samuel Halevi Synagogue in Toledo and, except for the Hebrew, the Alhambra in Granada. In medieval Spain, wealthy Jews, Muslims, and Christians shared a decorative vocabulary for both religious and domestic architecture.
After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, the Córdoba synagogue was used as a hospital, a chapel, and then a nursery school, which accounts for its damaged condition and the presence of a large painted cross on the west wall.
Relevant Textbook Chapter(s):
9
Repository and Online Resources:
• See a 360-degree view of the synagogue here.
Image Credits:
Wikimedia Commons; Linda Safran
