SYNAGOGUES. Jewish places of worship. The word Synagogue is Greek and means " assembly " or " con gregation." The Hebrew (post-Biblical) expression for the Synagogue is Beth ha-keneseth, "House of Assembly." The institution seems to have arisen in the Greek period. " It probably did not become a regular institution in Palestine till after the beginning of the Maccabean period. and seems to have grown up first in the Dispersion. By the time of the New Testament, as everybody knows, Synagogues had become a widespread institution, and it was owing to their existence that Judaism was able to perpetuate itself after the destruc tion of the Temple" (W. O. E. Oesterley and G. H. Box). The remains of ancient Synagogues have been discovered in Palestine in recent years. " In April and May, 1905, the German Oriental Society excavated a Hebrew syna gogue of the Roman period at Tell-Hum. It was 78 feet long by 59 feet wide, was built of beautiful white lime stone almost equal to marble, and was in every way more magnificent than any ever before found in Pales tine, that in Chorazin being the next finest. Its roof was gable-shaped, and it was surprizingly ornamented with fine carvings representing animals, birds, fruit, etc.; though in some cases these ornamentations had been in tentionally mutilated. In January, 1907, Macalister and Masterman reported that they had made sufficient excava tions at Khan Minyeh to prove that it was not the ancient Capernaum, as it contained no pottery older than the Arab time. This report being accepted, Tell-Hum
is left without a rival in its claim to be Capernaum, and makes it probable that the synagogue excavated there is the very one referred to in Luke 12, 5 " (Cobern). The Synagogue of course has its peculiar institutions and ceremonies, but it differs from the Christian Churches in having, according to K. Kohler, no sacraments. " Its institutions, such as the festivals, aim to preserve the historic memory of the people; its ceremonies, called ' signs ' or ' testimonies ' in the Scripture, are to sanctify the life of the nation, the family, or the individual." The Jew becomes a member of the Jewish community by right of birth. The most important institution of the Synagogue is the Sabbath. " The highest point of religious devotion in the synagogue is reached on the New Year's day and the Day of Atonement preceding the Feast of Sukkoth." Kohler thinks that the weakness of the Synagogue was its Orientalism, which was marked particularly by its former attitude to women. Full rights of membership have only been accorded them in our own time, owing to the reform movement in Germany and Austria.