Back to Aleppo

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COURTESY OF BEN ZVI INSTITUTE

The Great Aleppo Synagogue was one of the most important synagogues in the world and home to the oldest complete Hebrew Bible in existence. The synagogue burned down in 1947, but a virtual reality (VR) experience is bringing this lost wonder back to life.

Titled Back to Aleppo, the newest VR exhibit at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem brings visitors into the heart of this ancient synagogue as it appeared in November 1947. It is crafted around a collection of photographs commissioned only days before the 1947 fire by Sarah Shammah, a Syrian Jewish woman from Aleppo. Exhibit creators used these unique images, which capture every corner of the building, to create a 3D virtual reconstruction of the synagogue. Wearing headsets, visitors can choose to either take a guided tour of the whole building or explore it alongside Shammah as they listen to her harrowing story.

COURTESY OF THE VR PROJECT ‘PLACE’

Built originally between the fifth and seventh centuries CE, the synagogue functioned as the center of Jewish life in Aleppo, one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. It also housed the famous Aleppo Codex, written in Tiberias around 930 CE^a and considered the most authoritative copy of the Hebrew Bible. Following the United Nations’ declaration of the partition of Palestine in 1947, riots broke out in Aleppo against the Jewish community, and the Great Synagogue was torched. Although rebuilt by the early 1990s, the synagogue was irreparably destroyed in 2016, during the Syrian civil war. The incredibly realistic VR simulation saves the historical treasure for posterity, albeit only in digital form.

Through December 31, 2023
The Israel Museum
Jerusalem, Israel
www.imj.org.il