Great Synagogue of Vilna

Great Synagogue of Vilnius
Model of the Great Synagogue of Vilna at the Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv.
Basic information
Location	Vilnius' Old Town, Lithuania
Affiliation	Orthodox Judaism
Rite	Ashkenaz
Country	Lithuania
Status	Destroyed
Architectural description
Architectural style	Renaissance-Baroque
Completed	1572. Rebuilt 1633. Damaged in World War II and demolished from 1955 to 1957.
Capacity	5,000

The Great Synagogue of Vilna which once stood at the end of Jewish Street (I-2), Vilnius, Lithuania, was built between 1630–1633 after permission was granted to construct a synagogue from stone. Standing on the spot of an existing synagogue built in 1572, the site had first been used to house a Jewish house of prayer in 1440.

According to legend it was so magnificent and impressive, Napoleon who stood on the threshold of this synagogue in 1812 and gazed at the interior was speechless with admiration. The synagogue had a number of entrances. One, at street level, consisted of a pair of iron gates which had been donated by a tailors’ society in 1640. The other entrance on the western side, added in 1800, was a bit more imposing: it had an elevated two-tiered wooden gable with a portal and wrought iron posts. There was a heavy iron door with an original Hebrew inscription indicating it was a gift of a "society of Psalm reciters" in 1642. At the time of its building, ecclesiastical regulations all through Europe specified that a synagogue could not be built higher than a church. To obey the law, and yet create the necessary interior height, it was customary to dig a foundation deep enough for the synagogue’s floor level to be well below that of the street. Outside, the synagogue looked to be about three stories tall, but inside it soared to over five stories. Another entrance with a vestibule and the “pillory” was located on the northern side of the building.

The interior of the synagogue was redesigned in the mid-18th century by Vilnian German Johann Christoph Glaubitz. It had the overwhelming grandeur of an edifice in the style of the Italian Renaissance and an awe-inspiring atmosphere. Four massive, equidistant columns supported the vast stone-floored pile, and within them was the three-tiered ornate, rococo almemar, with a beautiful cupola, supported by eight small columns. It was built in the second half of the eighteenth century by Rabbi Judah ben Eliezer (commonly known as the YeSoD – an acronym of the three words Yehudah Sofer ve-Dayyan), the famous scribe and judge.