Sign In Forgot Password


Architectural History


Congregation and Building
by Rabbi Dr Raymond Apple AO RFD, Emeritus Rabbi

The Great Synagogue has stood on its present site since 1878, but the congregation itself has a history going back at least 50 years before that date, in the 1820s.
When New South Wales was founded as a penal colony in 1788, among the 751 First Fleet convicts were at least 16 Jews. With no proper Jewish burial rites, the first Jew to be buried on Australian soil (Joseph Levy) died in 1788. Only towards the end of the 1820s was there a successful gathering of 30 or so Jews for regular worship, done so by Philip Joseph Cohen, who came with recommendations from the Chief Rabbi in London. These settlers had regular services, but were faced with a rival congregation, who conducted their own services. A petition was created for a Jewish house of worship, but it had been refused in the past. However, by the 1820s
, there were enough Jews, including influential people from distinguished families such as Joseph Barrow Montefiore, to warrant a place of worship. 
“The New Year's Eve and Day of the Sons of Abraham The Jews of the colony assembled at the Jews' Synagogue held over Mr Rowell's shop in George Street which is elegantly fitted out as such on Monday evening, being the last night of the year, according to the ancient chronology of the tribe of Judah, when prayers were said. On Tuesday morning and again in the evening, other meetings took place and worship was again performed.
The first minister was Rev Michael Rose, who arrived on 20 May, 1835. From 1832 to 1837 the congregation worshipped at George Street, but numbers had grown to over 300 adults and larger premises were leased at No 4 Bridge Street for 160 pounds a year. 


The interior alterations had been made by Barnett Aaron Phillips, a stage carpenter who had worked at Drury Lane and built Australia's first stage scenery at Barnett Levey's Theatre Royal. The "manuscript copy" of the Books of Moses referred to by a current writer of the time was the first sacred scroll in Australia, purchased from Rabbi Aaron Levy; presumably it is still here at the Great Synagogue, but as we have many such scrolls it is not certain which of our present collection it is.
The building was consecrated on 2 April, 1844, with the music for the ceremony in the hands of Isaac Nathan, father of Australian music, who was also associated with the music at St Mary's Cathedral. For the occasion, Nathan composed settings for Baruch Habba ("Blessed be he that cometh") and Halleluyah.


The goldrushes of the 1850s increased the Jewish population considerably, but there was conflict between the newcomers and the older settlers, and in Sydney a group of members of the York Street synagogue opened a rival synagogue in Macquarie Street. The two congregations reunited with the opening of the magnificent Great Synagogue in Elizabeth Street, opposite Hyde Park, in 1878, as a result of the efforts of Rev Alexander Barnard Davis, of the York Street Synagogue.
As the decades have passed, the Synagogue has remained the Jewish cathedral of Sydney, though today the high-rise buildings on both sides tend to squash its exterior majesty. The growth of the Jewish community and its suburban dispersal has brought the establishment of many other synagogues - a move which the elders of The Great at first tended to resist - but The Great has retained its stateliness and solemnity, and its busy program of services and activities is supported by its large loyal congregation and provides, together with the city churches of other denominations, a serene spiritual oasis in the midst of the bustling life of the city.
At first there was a flat apse above the Ark, and the choir sang from one of the galleries at the opposite (Elizabeth Street) end of the building. When the present choir gallery was constructed, the opportunity was taken to build a ministers' robing room beneath it. The lighting of the building was originally gas, and the old gas taps are still visible on the light fittings around the walls and the four upright seven-branched candelabra flanking the Ark steps and the choir gallery. An interesting original feature of the light fittings hanging in front of the ladies' gallery is the six-pointed Star of David pattern that you see when looking up at them from beneath.
The gold-leaf stars on the ceiling were not there originally, but were introduced more than 70 years ago. Their purpose may have been to indicate that religion is a light and a lamp when the environment is dark and frightening. Similar star-studded ceilings are especially common in some Masonic buildings.


It is not known why there were never any windows along the walls that run from Elizabeth towards Castlereagh Street. But there may be a significance in the fact that there are 12 recessed arches on the ground floor and in their gallery, reminiscent of the12 tribes of ancient Israel. The stained glass windows at the two ends of the buildings are chaste but nondescript; one window illustrating Jewish symbols was installed near the choir gallery, perhaps as the first of a series that was never completed. The wheel window remains an impressive sight, though concrete spokes were added in the 1940s to give it strength and support.
The internal columns used to be adorned with intricate floral motifs which have long since been painted over. They were rediscovered in 1981 when the education centre beside the Synagogue was in process of construction. Stencils based on these old motifs were then used to decorate the Synagogue itself and the various floors of the new centre, providing a link between generations a century apart.
At the Elizabeth Street end of the Synagogue, the only major change over the years has been the installation of the massive wrought-iron gates. Beneath the building, excavations in the 1950s made it possible to construct a war memorial centre, auditorium and library. Then in the 1980s the education centre, erected between the Synagogue and Castlereagh Street and preserving the old Castlereagh Street façade, provided five floors for cultural, social and educational activity as well as modern offices, a Judaica shop, and a top-floor Sukkah or harvest tabernacle with a sliding roof.
On one side of the building is the Rabbi LA Falk Library, and the AM Rosenblum Jewish Museum is on the other - a pair of Jewish cultural partners. The features of the Synagogue itself express the threefold character of Jewish worship - community, study and prayer. In terms of community, the service involves the congregation jointly and severally at every stage; the cantor does not pray for them but, as it were, takes their prayer and co-ordinates it as an orchestrated offering to God. Stressing the community nature of Jewish prayer, public worship requires a quorum of at least ten males aged thirteen and over. And linking congregations everywhere, prayer is offered whilst facing Jerusalem the holy city.


The atmosphere of a spacious cathedral-like edifice, especially on great occasions, has been understood in Judaism from the time of the magnificent Temple in ancient Jerusalem onwards. But new ages bring new challenges, and congregational activities today deliberately endeavour to foster the feeling of fellowship and friendship that makes a congregation into a community, and enables it to become, in the words of the liturgy, "one united band doing God's will with a perfect heart".

Fri, 7 May 2021 25 Iyar 5781