Stepping through the round Roman stone towers of the Babylon Fortress into the tranquil pedestrian lanes of Coptic Cairo (in the Misr al-Qadima or Old Cairo district), and walking past the Hanging Church and the ancient Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus to the quiet shaded garden at the eastern end of the lane, visitors arrive before a graceful two-story ochre-and-cream building. Within this compact walled precinct, the three great Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have lived side by side and shared the fabric of Old Cairo for more than eleven hundred years.
This sanctuary is the Ben Ezra Synagogue (known in Hebrew transliteration as Beit Knesset Ben Ezra, and historically called the El-Geniza Synagogue or the Synagogue of the Palestinians / Levantine Jews), the oldest and most historically significant monument of Judaism in Egypt. Associated in venerable local lore with the riverbank of the infant Moses, the prophet Jeremiah, and Ezra the Scribe, and sanctified in the twelfth century by the footsteps of the preeminent Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (Rambam), its sealed upper-floor storeroom preserved the Cairo Geniza: roughly four hundred thousand manuscript pages spanning a millennium of Mediterranean civilization, an archive second in historical impact only to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
IWorship of the One God of Israel, the Nile Tradition of the Infant Moses, and the Footsteps of Moses Maimonides
In Jewish theology and liturgical life, a Synagogue (Beit Knesset, House of Assembly) serves as a Mikdash Me'at (a Sanctuary in Miniature), where the congregation gathers facing Jerusalem to offer prayer to the One God of Israel (HaShem / Adonai), chant the scrolls of the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), and study the teachings of the Prophets and Sages. At the Ben Ezra Synagogue, this liturgical devotion is enriched by centuries-old Egyptian Jewish traditions linking the very ground beneath the building to four foundational biblical figures.
According to traditional accounts recorded by medieval Jewish and Arab travelers, in antiquity the main channel of the River Nile flowed directly against the walls of the Babylon Fortress (before alluvial silting shifted the riverbed some five hundred meters westward over the centuries). Local tradition holds that the groundwater spring beneath the Ben Ezra Synagogue marks the exact reed bed where Jochebed placed the woven papyrus basket carrying the infant Moses (Moshe Rabbeinu) before he was drawn from the water by Pharaoh's daughter, and where Moses later prayed before leading the Exodus. Following the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE, the prophet Jeremiah is said to have gathered the Judaean exiles in Egypt for prayer on this spot; and in the fifth century BCE, Ezra the Scribe (Ezra HaSofer) traditionally visited the community and deposited a Torah scroll here.
While the memories of Moses, Jeremiah, and Ezra belong to sacred legend, the towering historical figure whose documented presence forever shapes the identity of the Ben Ezra Synagogue is Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1138 to 1204 CE), universally known as Maimonides or by the acronym Rambam, the greatest Jewish philosopher, jurist, and medical scholar of the Middle Ages. Born in Córdoba in Islamic Spain, Maimonides fled Almohad persecution with his family, lived briefly in Morocco and the Holy Land, and settled in Fustat (Old Cairo) in 1166 CE, where he resided until his death.
Maimonides's home in Fustat stood only a short walk from the Ben Ezra Synagogue. Throughout the nearly four decades in which he served simultaneously as Nagid (Supreme Head of the Egyptian Jewish Community) and as Royal Court Physician to Sultan Saladin (Salah al-Din) and his son Al-Afdal at the Cairo Citadel, Maimonides prayed regularly inside this synagogue on the Sabbath and festivals. It was during his years in Fustat that he composed his two monumental masterpieces that transformed world thought: the Mishneh Torah, a fourteen-volume systematic codification of the entire body of Jewish law written in lucid Hebrew, and the Guide for the Perplexed (Dalalat al-Ha'irin / Moreh Nevukhim), his Judeo-Arabic synthesis of biblical revelation and Aristotelian philosophy.
The religious custom that turned the Ben Ezra Synagogue into the greatest medieval manuscript treasure house on earth is the Jewish law regarding sacred writings (Shemot). According to Jewish law (Halakha), any worn-out parchment scroll, prayer book, or sheet of paper bearing the Sacred Name of God (and, by the pious extension practiced by the Jews of medieval Fustat, virtually any document written in the Hebrew alphabet, revered as the sacred script of creation) may never be thrown into the trash or casually burned, lest the Divine Name be profaned.
Instead, damaged or obsolete writings must be respectfully placed in a dedicated synagogue storeroom called a Geniza (from a Hebrew and Persian root meaning to hide or to store away) until they can be buried with full honors in a consecrated cemetery. Because the Geniza chamber on the second floor of the Ben Ezra Synagogue was a windowless, enclosed room accessible only by climbing a ladder to a high opening in the wall, and because Cairo's desert climate is extraordinarily dry, the community accumulated documents inside this dark chamber for more than eight centuries without emptying it. By the late nineteenth century, roughly 400,000 manuscript pages and fragments dating from the ninth to the nineteenth centuries lay preserved inside the room.
Visitors admiring the interior of the Ben Ezra Synagogue, with its pointed horseshoe arches, intricate geometric stucco reliefs (arabesques), and pierced brass lamps, sometimes assume either that the building was originally a mosque or that the standing walls date directly from 882 CE. In reality, prior to 882 CE the site was occupied by a Coptic Orthodox church legally sold to the Jewish community, while the present two-story building is a complete 1892 reconstruction erected on the footprint of the eleventh-century synagogue, employing the refined Mamluk Revival and Neo-Islamic decorative craftsmanship shared across nineteenth-century Cairo's sacred architecture.
IIFrom the 20,000-Dinar Purchase of 882 CE to Solomon Schechter's 1896 Discovery and the 2023 Restoration
The documented history of the Ben Ezra Synagogue begins in 882 CE with a remarkable transaction between the Coptic Christian and Jewish communities of Fustat during the rule of the Tulunid governor Ahmad ibn Tulun. Faced with an extraordinary tax levy of 20,000 gold dinars imposed by Ibn Tulun upon the Coptic Patriarchate, the 56th Coptic Pope of Alexandria, Patriarch Michael III (Khael III, reigned 880 to 907), sold a damaged Coptic church inside the Babylon Fortress (formerly dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel) to the Jewish community of Fustat for the exact sum of 20,000 gold dinars.
The purchase was negotiated on behalf of the congregation following the liturgical rite of the Land of Israel (known in Arabic as the Kanisat al-Shamiyin or Synagogue of the Levantine/Palestinian Jews, distinct from the Babylonian-rite Iraqiyin synagogue and the Karaite synagogue nearby) by a wealthy scholar and dignitary from Jerusalem named Abraham Ben Ezra, whose name the synagogue bears to this day. Around 1012 CE, during the turbulent decrees of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the synagogue was ordered demolished along with neighboring churches; however, under his successor Caliph Al-Zahir, the congregation received official permission to rebuild a grand basilica synagogue between 1025 and 1040 CE, incorporating the famous upper-level Geniza chamber.
- 882 CECoptic Patriarch Michael III sells the property to Abraham Ben Ezra for 20,000 gold dinarsTo pay a heavy tax demanded by ruler Ahmad ibn Tulun, Coptic Patriarch Michael III sells the former Church of Saint Michael in the Babylon Fortress to Abraham Ben Ezra of Jerusalem on behalf of the Palestinian-rite Jewish congregation.
- Circa 1012 CE and 1025 to 1040 CEDemolition under Caliph Al-Hakim and eleventh-century Fatimid reconstruction with the Geniza roomDestroyed during the decrees of Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim, the synagogue is rebuilt between 1025 and 1040 under Caliph Al-Zahir; donor lists for the new cedar roof and marble columns survive in the Cairo Geniza itself.
- 1166 to 1204 CEMoses Maimonides (Rambam) settles in Fustat and worships at the Ben Ezra SynagogueLiving a few hundred meters away in Fustat while serving as Nagid of Egyptian Jewry and physician to Saladin's court, Maimonides prays at Ben Ezra and leaves behind over 60 autograph manuscripts and signed responsa in its Geniza.
- 1889 to 1892Complete reconstruction of the two-story synagogue in its current nineteenth-century formWhen the medieval eleventh-century structure becomes structurally unsound, the Cairo Jewish community rebuilds the synagogue between 1889 and 1892 on the original basilica plan while retaining the accumulated manuscripts of the Geniza chamber.
- May 1896 to early 1897Agnes Lewis, Margaret Gibson, and Solomon Schechter bring the Cairo Geniza to world lightIn May 1896, Scottish twin scholars Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson show Cambridge Talmudist Solomon Schechter a Cairo leaf containing the lost original Hebrew text of the Book of Ben Sira; in December 1896, Chief Rabbi Aaron Bensimon grants Schechter permission to transfer over 193,000 Geniza fragments to Cambridge University Library.
- 1982 to 1991 and August 31, 2023Modern conservation campaigns and the 2023 Egyptian national restoration inaugurationFollowing architectural documentation by the Canadian Centre for Architecture in the 1980s, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities completes a comprehensive structural, ceiling, and woodwork restoration inaugurated by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on August 31, 2023.
The 1896 scholarly breakthrough and S. D. Goitein's portrait of a Mediterranean society. For centuries, travelers such as Jacob Saphir (who peered into the rooftop opening in 1864) heard local legends that venomous snakes guarded the dark Geniza room against anyone who disturbed its ancient papers. During the 1889 to 1892 rebuilding, stray leaves began trickling into Cairo's antiquities market. In May 1896, the intrepid Scottish twin sisters and biblical scholars Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson returned from Egypt to Cambridge and showed a worn parchment leaf to Solomon Schechter (1847 to 1915), Reader in Talmudic at Cambridge University. Within minutes, Schechter realized he was holding a leaf from the original Hebrew text of the Wisdom of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), a second-century BCE biblical book whose Hebrew original had vanished for over a thousand years.
Armed with letters from Cambridge University, Schechter traveled to Cairo in December 1896 and won the warm friendship of Cairo's Chief Rabbi, Aaron Bensimon, who invited him to climb the ladder into the Ben Ezra Geniza and take away whatever manuscripts he wished for scholarly preservation. Working for weeks in clouds of ancient dust, Schechter packed and shipped more than 193,000 manuscript fragments (the Taylor-Schechter Collection) to Cambridge University Library, while additional fragments reached Oxford, London, St. Petersburg, and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. In the twentieth century, historian S. D. Goitein demonstrated in his monumental five-volume study A Mediterranean Society that the Ben Ezra Geniza preserved not only ancient biblical codices, the Damascus Document (anticipating the Dead Sea Scrolls by half a century), and autograph drafts of Maimonides, but also tens of thousands of everyday letters written in Judeo-Arabic by silk merchants, shipowners trading across the Indian Ocean to India, physicians, brides, and charity officials between the tenth and thirteenth centuries.
IIITwo-Story Basilica Plan, Mother-of-Pearl Torah Ark, Central Marble Bimah, and the Upper Geniza Chamber
Architecturally, the 1892 Ben Ezra Synagogue (faithfully erected over the eleventh-century Fatimid plan and meticulously restored in 2023) is a rectangular two-story edifice that blends the three-aisled Eastern Mediterranean basilica layout with the refined geometric woodwork, marble paving, and stucco ornamentation of Islamic Cairo.
On the ground floor, two arcades of marble columns topped with carved capitals divide the prayer hall into a lofty central nave and two side aisles. Overhead, the second story wraps around three sides of the hall (north, west, and south) to form the Women's Gallery (Ezrat Nashim) screened by turned wooden latticework, while the eastern end of the upper level houses the historic Geniza chamber.
Set into the center of the eastern wall (oriented toward Jerusalem) and approached by marble steps is the sacred Torah Ark (Aron Kodesh). Its double wooden doors and arched frame are masterpieces of Egyptian artisanal marquetry, inlaid with thousands of interlocking polygons of ebony, walnut, bone, ivory, and iridescent mother-of-pearl arranged around six-pointed Stars of David, crowned above by the Ten Commandments inscribed in gilded Hebrew letters.
In keeping with Sephardic and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) synagogue tradition, the raised Reader's Platform (Bimah or Tevah) stands directly in the center of the main prayer hall facing the Torah Ark. Crafted of polished white marble with an ornate carved wooden balustrade and brass candelabra, the Bimah is where the cantor (Hazzan) unrolled the parchment Torah scrolls during Sabbath and festival readings.
Concealed behind the upper wall at the eastern end of the second-floor gallery is the famous Geniza storeroom. Measuring roughly two stories deep without doors or windows at floor level, the room was originally accessed only through a high aperture in the gallery wall, where worn sacred texts and community records were dropped into dry darkness for nearly a millennium until 1896.
Behind the central Bimah in the western section of the nave stands a fenced structure draped in green and gold embroidered velvet: local synagogue tradition venerates this spot as the memorial cenotaph marking where the prophet Jeremiah and Ezra the Scribe prayed, alongside an ancient marble slab associated in folk memory with Moses.
Beneath the rear courtyard precinct lies an ancient subterranean water cistern fed by the water table of the old Nile channel. Historically used by the congregation as a ritual immersion bath (Mikveh) for spiritual purification, the well is also revered in local legend as the exact riverbank inlet where Pharaoh's daughter drew the infant Moses's basket from the reeds.
Cleaned and stabilized during the 2023 restoration, the synagogue's lofty timber ceiling and arcades glow with indigo, crimson, and gold geometric coffers framing six-pointed Stars of David (Magen David), intricate plaster arabesque friezes, stained-glass clerestory windows, and suspended pierced-brass Mamluk-style sanctuary lamps.
| Architectural feature | Location within the synagogue | Artistic craftsmanship and liturgical significance |
|---|---|---|
| Torah Ark (Aron Kodesh / Hekhal) | Center of the eastern wall (facing Jerusalem) | Fine wood marquetry inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory geometric stars beneath the Ten Commandments |
| Reader's Platform (Bimah / Tevah) | Center of the ground-floor central nave | Raised octagonal white marble podium with carved wood railing for reading the Torah scrolls |
| Cairo Geniza Storeroom | Upper eastern mezzanine off the second-floor gallery | Windowless high-walled chamber that preserved ~400,000 medieval leaves from the 9th to 19th centuries |
| Women's Gallery (Ezrat Nashim) | Second-floor U-shaped balcony (north, west, and south) | Upper prayer gallery overlooking the nave through marble arcades and wooden Mashrabiya screens |
| Memorial Shrine of Jeremiah / Ezra | Western section of the ground-floor nave behind the Bimah | Velvet-draped enclosure commemorating the traditional prayer site of Jeremiah, Ezra, and Moses |
| Ancient Well & Ritual Bath (Mikveh) | Subterranean basin in the synagogue precinct | Groundwater spring from the ancient Nile bank, linked to the infant Moses and ritual immersion |
IVThe Lie of the Land
It should be stated clearly that Jewish synagogue architecture does not employ East Asian geomancy (feng shui). The location of the Ben Ezra Synagogue was determined by the historical settlement of Fustat's Jewish community inside the Roman walls of the Babylon Fortress and the 882 CE purchase of the site, while its interior axis strictly follows the Jewish legal requirement (Halakha) of orienting the Torah Ark toward the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (Mizrach). Below is a comparative reading of the synagogue's setting and orientation through the library's traditional landform lens.
Viewed across the historical topography of the Nile Valley narrows at coordinates 30.0058 degrees north, 31.2310 degrees east, the Ben Ezra Synagogue sits tucked inside the northeastern quadrant of the massive stone curtain walls of the Roman Fortress of Babylon (Qasr al-Sham'a) in Old Cairo. In antiquity and the early Middle Ages (prior to the tenth-century westward shift of the river channel), the mighty River Nile flowed directly along the western bastions of the fortress, while to the east rose the protective limestone escarpment of the Mokattam Hills (Jabal al-Muqattam). In classical landform terms, a sanctuary nestled inside a double ring of ancient stone fortress walls and peaceful garden courtyards, with a great river to the front (west) and a limestone mountain ridge to the rear (east), exemplifies a wind-sheltered inner-citadel sanctuary. This dry, doubly enclosed microclimate shielded the upper Geniza chamber from both Nile flood dampness and desert storms, allowing fragile paper and parchment to survive intact for nearly a thousand years.
In terms of axial orientation, the rectangular prayer hall of the Ben Ezra Synagogue is aligned along a West-Southwest to East-Northeast axis. Worshipers enter from the West, pass the central marble Bimah, and direct their gaze and standing prayers (Amidah) toward the Torah Ark (Aron Kodesh) set into the Eastern-Northeastern wall. This bearing corresponds directly to the overland compass trajectory from Cairo across the Sinai Peninsula toward Jerusalem, anchoring the sanctuary in the spiritual geography of Israel.
VHistorical Festivals of Medieval Fustat, the 2023 National Restoration, and Old Cairo's Three-Faith Heritage Trail
Because Cairo's indigenous Jewish community now numbers only a handful of residents, the Ben Ezra Synagogue no longer holds regular weekly congregations and operates today as a protected National Historic Monument and Museum under the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Yet the hundreds of liturgical poems (piyyutim), synagogue statutes, and festival letters preserved in the Cairo Geniza offer a vivid window into the vibrant ceremonial calendar celebrated within these walls during the era of Maimonides and his descendants.
| Date / Season | Calendar system | Historical Festival or Commemoration | Liturgical memories and cultural heritage at the Ben Ezra Synagogue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month of Nisan annually (March or April) | Hebrew Lunisolar Calendar | Festival of Passover (Pesach) on the banks of the Nile | Held special resonance for the Jews of medieval Fustat living beside the Nile: Geniza manuscripts preserve medieval Passover Haggadot recited by the congregation of Ben Ezra commemorating the Exodus from Egypt. |
| Month of Tishrei annually (September or October) | Hebrew Lunisolar Calendar | Rosh Hashanah (New Year), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot | During the medieval High Holy Days, both Palestinian-rite and Babylonian-rite worshipers gathered at the Ben Ezra Synagogue to hear the sounding of the Shofar and venerate the ancient Torah scrolls. |
| 20 Tevet annually (December or January) | Hebrew Calendar & International Academic Calendar | Annual Commemoration (Yahrzeit) of Rabbi Moses Maimonides (Rambam) | Marks the passing of Moses Maimonides in Fustat on December 13, 1204; scholars, diplomats, and cultural visitors visit the Ben Ezra Synagogue to honor his enduring contributions to philosophy, law, and medicine. |
| August 31, 2023 and year-round | Contemporary Gregorian Calendar | Reopening after the 2023 National Restoration & Abrahamic Heritage Visits | Inaugurated by the Egyptian government in August 2023 after meticulous structural and artistic conservation, welcoming international visitors as a cornerstone of Old Cairo's interfaith heritage trail. |
The Abrahamic Triangle of Old Cairo. A visit to the Ben Ezra Synagogue offers one of the most moving experiences of interfaith urban geography in the world. Within a walking radius of less than five hundred meters in Misr al-Qadima (Old Cairo), visitors can step from the Ben Ezra Synagogue (882 CE) directly to the fourth-century Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga) and the Hanging Church (Al-Muallaqa) of Coptic Christianity, and then walk just outside the northern wall of the Babylon Fortress to the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As (founded in 642 CE, the oldest mosque in Egypt and all of Africa). The Egyptian government's comprehensive 2023 restoration of the Ben Ezra Synagogue alongside its Coptic and Islamic neighbors underscores Egypt's commitment to safeguarding every chapter of its multi-religious heritage.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Mar Girgis Street, Coptic Cairo (Babylon Fortress), Misr al-Qadima District (Old Cairo), Cairo Governorate, Egypt
- Getting there
- The Ben Ezra Synagogue is situated on Mar Girgis Street inside the Coptic Cairo (Babylon Fortress) compound in the Misr al-Qadima (Old Cairo) district, approximately 5 km south of Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. The fastest and most convenient way to reach the site is via the Cairo Metro Line 1 (direction Helwan), alighting directly at Mar Girgis Station (Saint George Station). Stepping out of the metro station places you immediately in front of the Roman towers of Babylon Fortress; walk down the pedestrian steps past Saint George's Church and Abu Serga Church for about 5 minutes to reach the entrance of the Ben Ezra Synagogue.
- Coordinates
- 30.0058, 31.231
The Ben Ezra Synagogue is located at the eastern end of the pedestrian alleyway inside the walled compound of Coptic Cairo (Babylon Fortress) and is open daily to visitors from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. or 5:00 p.m. (admission is free of charge). After passing through the main security gate of Coptic Cairo near the Coptic Museum and walking past the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (Abu Serga), follow the quiet stone-paved lane through the shaded garden to the synagogue's dedicated security checkpoint. Following the August 2023 state restoration, visitors can admire the gleaming mother-of-pearl Torah Ark (Aron Kodesh), the central white marble Bimah, and the painted geometric ceiling from the ground-floor aisles. Please dress modestly (shoulders and knees covered), maintain a respectful quiet atmosphere inside the sanctuary, and observe current on-site guidelines regarding interior photography.
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?Quick Questions
When was the Ben Ezra Synagogue founded, and why is it located inside Coptic Cairo?
Prior to 882 CE, the building on this site was a Coptic Orthodox church dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel inside the Roman Babylon Fortress. In 882 CE, to raise funds for a heavy tax of 20,000 gold dinars imposed by the Tulunid ruler Ahmad ibn Tulun, Coptic Patriarch Michael III legally sold the church for 20,000 gold dinars to the Jewish community of Fustat, represented by Abraham Ben Ezra of Jerusalem, establishing the synagogue beside Old Cairo's historic Coptic churches.
What is the Cairo Geniza discovered at the Ben Ezra Synagogue, and why is it so important to world history?
Under Jewish law, worn-out writings bearing the Name of God (and by local custom any text in Hebrew script) may not be destroyed but must be stored in a synagogue repository called a Geniza. Preserved by Cairo's arid desert climate inside the sealed second-floor Geniza chamber of the Ben Ezra Synagogue were roughly 400,000 manuscript pages dating from the 9th to the 19th centuries, including ancient biblical codices, the lost Hebrew original of the Book of Ben Sira, the Damascus Document, over 60 autograph texts by Maimonides, and tens of thousands of medieval trade letters, marriage contracts, and court records.
How did Solomon Schechter and the Scottish twin sisters Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson bring the Cairo Geniza to Cambridge in 1896?
In May 1896, Scottish twin scholars Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson showed Cambridge Talmudic scholar Solomon Schechter a parchment leaf they had acquired in Cairo, which Schechter immediately identified as the long-lost original Hebrew text of the Wisdom of Ben Sira. Traveling to Cairo in December 1896, Schechter received permission from Chief Rabbi Aaron Bensimon to enter the upper Geniza room of the Ben Ezra Synagogue and transfer more than 193,000 manuscript fragments to Cambridge University Library.
What was the connection between the philosopher Moses Maimonides (Rambam) and the Ben Ezra Synagogue?
Moses Maimonides (1138 to 1204 CE), the preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher, jurist, and court physician to Sultan Saladin, lived in Fustat (Old Cairo) only a few hundred meters from the Ben Ezra Synagogue from 1166 until his death. He worshiped regularly at the Ben Ezra Synagogue while serving as Nagid (head of Egyptian Jewry) and composing his masterpieces, the Mishneh Torah and the Guide for the Perplexed; dozens of letters and legal rulings written in his own hand were recovered from the synagogue's Geniza.
When was the current synagogue building constructed, and what are its main architectural highlights?
After the medieval eleventh-century structure became structurally unstable, the synagogue was completely rebuilt in 1892 on the original basilica footprint and underwent a comprehensive Egyptian government restoration completed in August 2023. Its two-story interior features twelve marble columns supporting horseshoe arches, a central white marble Reader's Platform (Bimah), a magnificent eastern Torah Ark (Aron Kodesh) inlaid with mother-of-pearl and ivory geometric stars, and a painted coffered ceiling adorned with Stars of David.