Esnogaen i Creechurch Lane i London

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Bancos frå Creechurch Lane-synagogen

Esnogaen i det som no er 5 Creechurch Lane i London vart innreidd i 1657 og var den første offisielle synagogen i England sidan utvisninga av jødane frå England i 1290. Denne esnogaen var i bruk fram til Bevis Marks-esnogaen vart innvigd i 1701.

Innreiing

Aharón hakkohén — detalj frå måleriet av Aaron de Chavez.
Foto: Evan Millner

Bancos

Det finst enda att mange bancos (benker) frå esnogaen frå 1657. Desse benkene, som truleg utgjer den störste samlinga i verda av benker frå den perioden, finst i dag i Bevis Marks-esnogaen (1701), der dei enda er i vanleg bruk.

Bilde måla av Aaron de Chavez

Detalj av lovtavlone frå måleriet: Ordet «anokhi» — det første ordet i dei ti bodorda.
Foto: Evan Millner

Eit måleri som viser Mosjé og Aharón som held lovtavlone, måla av esnogueiroen (synagogemedlemmet) Aaron de Chavez og datert 1674, hang over Hekhálen i Creechurch Lane-esnogaen.

Folk

Augnevitneskildringar

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) besøkte denne esnogaen på simḥàt Torá i 1663 og skildra det besøket i dagboka si:

14th. [...] and after dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson’s conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles, and the women behind a lattice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is their Law, in a press to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear him do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a prayer for the King, which they pronounced his name in Portugall; but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew. But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this. Away thence with my mind strongly disturbed with them, by coach and set down my wife in Westminster Hall, and I to White Hall [...]
(Diary of Samuel Pepys. October 1663.)

Det er tydelig at puritanske Samuel Pepys opplevde eit aldri så lite kultursjokk her...

Etterhistorie

Bygninga vart reva i 1857.

Kjeldor