THE MAIMONIDES CENTRAL SEPHARADI

SYNAGOGUE
Hadera, Israel
Competition Entry - First
Prize

The idea behind the design of the central Sephardic
synagogue was to attempt to revive traditional design
patterns based on both Maimonides’ halachic rulings
(the laws he set down in his book Hayad Hahazaka)
and Talmudic literature as it was passed on to me by
the beadles of the synagogues in Safad, capital of the
Galilee, home and birthplace of Judaism’s mystical
stream of the Kabbala, and infuse into them a new
meaning, in line with the program for this synagogue,
and in accordance with the immediate landscape.
I endeavored to captivate in this building the timeless
spiritual exaltation that we experience in places of
worship of every religion, in any culture we know, a
feeling that worshippers underwent in synagogues
where Maimonides prayed, such as the Iben Denan
Synagogue in Fez, Morocco, the Ben-Ezra Synagogue
in Cairo, Egypt, or the Abuhab Sephardic Synagogue
in Safad, Israel. That deep feeling that opens your
heart when entering places of worship, stems from the
structural properties of the building itself.

Ground floor First floor plan,

plan women’s wing.
1 main 6 stairs leading
entrance gate to women’s wing
2 entrance
courtyard
3 main hall
4 holy ark
5 the bimah
Cut-away axono-
metric of building.
The courtyard at the front of the building forms a
transition area, separating that which is holy from the
secular. Access to the courtyard is via a wide staircase,
located in between two existing eucalyptus trees “to
exalt the house of the Lord.” The gates at the entrance
to the courtyard are the “Gates of Prayer”. At the
courtyard’s center of gravity is a water fountain; water
being the symbol of life in all religions.

At the main entrance door to the building there is a

stair leading down into the synagogue, as it says,
“From the depths I call to thee, Oh Lord.”

Main entrance
door

Wide staircase
located between
two existing
trees, leading to
the “Gates of
Prayer”.
Perspective
drawing of the
entrance court-
yard separating
the holy from the
secular.

Entrace Court-
yard, Haari
Ashkenazic syna-
gogue, Safad.

Main entrance
elevation
The synagogue seats 450 worshippers, 300 men in the
main hall and 150 in the women’s section. The wall of
the Holy Ark (which holds the Torah scrolls) faces
Jerusalem. In the center of the hall there are four
pillars, corresponding to the number of the
“Matriarchs”, structurally dividing the hall into 9
sections, corresponding to the nine months of Cut-away detail
pregnancy. of the dome.

The Sephardic synagogue had its roots in the Eastern
culture of the Islamic lands and thus was influenced
by the structure of the mosque. The seats (as in
mosques) are arranged around the walls,
perpendicular to and at an equal distance from the axis
that links the Holy Ark and the “bimah” (dais), where
the reader of the Torah portion stands.
The “bimah” stands on 8 pillars, equal to the 8 days of
Hanukah. Over the “bimah” there is a dome with 12
windows, representing the Twelve Tribes. The
building is constructed of white plaster incorporated
with regionally quarried sandstone used for the frames
of the doors and windows, the arches of the arcade and
the floor tiles of the courtyard.

Construction
detail:
Two windows,
forming one win-
dow alcove.

Traditional pat-
terns of seats
along the walls,
“bimah” with 8
pillars and dome
with 12
windows.
Abuhab Syna-
gogue, Safad.
Perspective
drawing of the
interior.
The Holy Ark
has three doors,
each opened
once a year.
 Nili Portugali is a practicing architect working in
Israel for more than 30 years teaching at the Faculty of Architecture
and Town Planning, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa
(until 2006 at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design, Architectural
Department, Jerusalem). Her work has focused on both practice and
theory, and is tightly connected to the holistic-phenomenological
school of thought.
She is a graduate of the Architectural Association School of
Architecture (A.A), London (Diploma 1973). She studied architecture
and Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A (1979-
81), and worked and participated in research with Prof. Christopher
Alexander at the Center for Environmental Structure, Berkeley
California.
Portugali has won prizes in competitions; she is invited to
lectures in international conferences and participates in various
exhibitions in Israel and abroad. She has published many articles on
architecture and her work is documented in professional magazines, in
the press and on television. She was Member of Special Committee
for the authorization of schools of Architecture in Israel at the Council
for Higher Education.
She has just published her new book which was selected among the
24 books of the year 2007 by the Roya Institute of British Architects
International Book Award
The Act of Creation and the Spirit of a Place
A Holistic- Phenomenological Approach to Architecture
/Axel Menges Stuttgart-London 2006

For More details on Nili Portugali’s work & Book

please see: www.niliportugali.com