Fortress synagogue

Old Synagogue in Kraków

A fortress synagogue is a synagogue built to withstand attack while protecting the lives of people sheltering within it.

Fortress synagogues first appeared in the

Old Synagogue, Przemyśl is a typical example. The region also had fortified churches, of which St. Andrew's Church, Kraków

is a surviving example.

The

Old Synagogue, Kraków, a rare surviving fortress synagogue, was rebuilt in 1570 with an attic wall featuring loopholes and windows placed far above ground level, features borrowed from military architecture. It has been altered many times since.^[1]

Walls were thick masonry, with heavy buttressing to withstand assault.^{Husiatyn Synagogue is another example of a surviving, 16th-century fortress synagogue.

See also}

Fortified church – the same concept applied to Christian churches
Wooden synagogues of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
– another style of synagogues in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Historic Cities and Sacred Sites: Cultural Roots for Urban Futures. By Ismail Serageldin, Ephim Shluger, Joan Martin-Brown, World Bank Publications, 2001, pp. 307-8.
^ Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-day Ukraine. By Omer Bartov, Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 105 ff.

[serag-1] Historic Cities and Sacred Sites: Cultural Roots for Urban Futures. By Ismail Serageldin, Ephim Shluger, Joan Martin-Brown, World Bank Publications, 2001, pp. 307-8.

[2] Erased: Vanishing Traces of Jewish Galicia in Present-day Ukraine. By Omer Bartov, Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 105 ff.

[1]