- Yoab in Aram Soba

King David gives Yoab ben Seruya, the general of his army, the city of Aram Soba (Aleppo) as a present after their successful conquest of the city in 950 BCE. According to local lore, Yoab then begins to build the Great Synagogue, one of the oldest synagogues in the world.

Visitors throughout the centuries were impressed by the synagogue’s beauty. An Italian nobleman, Pietro della Valle, who visited the synagogue on August 23, 1625, writes, “The synagogue of the Jews of Aleppo … is known for its beauty and antiquity…” In 1840, Rabbi Yaakov Zev, an Ashkenazic traveler to the Middle East, referred to it as “the glorious synagogue, about which all the travelers state that there is not found another one like it.”

(Image of Aleppo’s Great Synagogue, interior of eastern wing.)

  • Biblical Times
  • 950 BCE
  • 630s
  • 929
  • 1375
  • 1400s
  • 1492
  • 1527
  • 1565 c.
  • 1665
  • 1732
  • 1760 c.
  • 1840
  • 1869
  • 1892
  • 1909
  • 1911-1912
  • 1918
  • 1930s
  • 1935
  • 1944
  • 1945
  • 1946
  • 1947
  • 1948
  • 1949
  • 1950
  • 1951
  • 1956
  • 1956
  • 1957
  • 1958
  • 1964
  • 1965
  • 1967
  • 1972
  • 1974
  • 1975
  • 1975
  • 1980s
  • 1988
  • 1992
  • 1994

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