Visitor guides to 24 Jewish sites
Each guide comes from the OrQuest app: what to wear, photography, cost, when to go and access, then the site’s history and the Hebrew words and phrases for your visit. Of the 24, 17 are in Israel and 7 abroad.
What to wear in Jerusalem, site by site · What to wear in Israel, site by site
Jerusalem
Three thousand years of city on one limestone ridge. Prayer, archaeology, a market and a memorial, all within an hour’s walk.
Jerusalem, IsraelThe Western Wallהַכֹּתֶל הַמַּעֲרָבִיA retaining wall of the Temple Mount platform, and the most visited place of Jewish prayer in the world.
Jerusalem, IsraelThe Jewish Quarter, Old Cityהָרוֹבַע הַיְּהוּדִיA residential quarter built on top of its own excavations, where the ruins were left visible inside the new streets.
Jerusalem, IsraelThe Temple Mount Overlookהַר הַבַּיִתThe most contested thirty-five acres on earth, and the one place in Jerusalem where how you visit matters more than whether you do.
Jerusalem, IsraelThe City of Davidעִיר דָּוִדThe ridge above the spring where Jerusalem started, and the tunnel its people cut to keep the water inside the walls.
Jerusalem, IsraelThe Mount of Olivesהַר הַזֵּיתִיםThe oldest Jewish cemetery still in use, on the slope that gives the classic view of the Old City.
Jerusalem, IsraelMachane Yehuda Marketמַחֲנֵה יְהוּדָהJerusalem shops here, argues here and empties out of here on Friday afternoon at a speed you can watch.
Jerusalem, IsraelYad Vashemיָד וָשֵׁםIsrael’s memorial to the six million, built around the work of recovering names.
Tel Aviv and Jaffa
An ancient port and the first Hebrew city built on the dunes above it, now one continuous street grid with two very different clocks.
Tel Aviv-Yafo, IsraelOld Jaffa and the Portיָפוֹ הָעַתִּיקָהThe harbour the country arrived through, still fishing, now with galleries in the vaults above it.
Tel Aviv-Yafo, IsraelNeve Tzedekנְוֵה צֶדֶקThe first Jewish neighbourhood built outside Jaffa, and the closest thing Tel Aviv has to a town that came before it.
Tel Aviv-Yafo, IsraelIndependence Hallבֵּית הָעַצְמָאוּתA small museum room on Rothschild Boulevard where the State of Israel was declared in about half an hour.
The Galilee and the North
Where Jewish life regrouped after the Temple fell: the Talmud of the Land of Israel, the vowel points and the kabbalists of Tzfat, with a lake at the centre of it.
Tzfat, IsraelTzfat and Its SynagoguesצְפַתA mountain town where Jewish mysticism and Jewish law were rewritten in the same generation, in rooms you can still walk into.
Tiberias, IsraelTiberiasטְבֶרְיָהThe lakeside city where the Jerusalem Talmud was finished and the vowel points under Hebrew letters were fixed.
Upper Galilee, IsraelThe Ancient Synagogue at Kfar Baramכְּפַר בַּרְעָםA synagogue facade still standing to its full height in an oak field, with nothing built around it.
Sea of Galilee, IsraelThe Shore of the Sea of GalileeהַכִּנֶּרֶתA freshwater lake below sea level, ringed by ancient synagogues, kibbutz fields and the graves of the poets who wrote about it.
The Negev and the South
Desert, salt and copper. The emptiest part of the country holds a Herodian fortress, the lowest water on earth and mines older than the alphabet.
Judean Desert, IsraelMasadaמְצָדָהA palace fortress on a desert plateau, a Roman siege ramp still leaning against it and one ancient author telling us what happened at the end.
Jordan Rift Valley, IsraelThe Dead Seaיָם הַמֶּלַחA lake with no outlet, ten times as salty as the ocean, dropping about a metre a year.
Arava, near Eilat, IsraelTimna Valleyעֵמֶק תִּמְנָעThe oldest copper-mining landscape in the world, in sandstone the colour of rust, about twenty-five kilometres north of Eilat.
Europe and the Western Diaspora
Communities that built in stone and then had to leave it: Prague’s Gothic prayer hall, Toledo’s Mudéjar plaster, Amsterdam’s candlelit hall and the New York quarter their descendants filled.
Prague, Czech RepublicJosefov and the Old-New Synagogueיוֹזֶפוֹב, הָרוֹבַע הַיְּהוּדִיThe oldest active synagogue in Europe, six more around it and a cemetery where the graves are stacked twelve deep.
Toledo, SpainThe Synagogue of El Tránsitoבֵּית הַכְּנֶסֶת שֶׁל שְׁמוּאֵל הַלֵּוִיA fourteenth-century prayer hall whose carved plaster still carries its Hebrew inscriptions, kept now as the Sephardic Museum of Spain.
Toledo, SpainSanta María la Blancaבֵּית הַכְּנֶסֶת הַגָּדוֹל, טוֹלֶדוֹFive aisles of horseshoe arches on whitewashed brick piers, built as a synagogue, taken as a church and used for prayer by nobody now.
Amsterdam, NetherlandsThe Portuguese Synagogueקָהָל קָדוֹשׁ תַּלְמוּד תּוֹרָהA vast brick hall of 1675, lit by candles and floored with sand, built by families who had come back to Judaism one generation out of Portugal.
Venice, ItalyThe Venetian Ghettoהַגֶּטוֹ שֶׁל וֶנֶצְיָהThe walled quarter of 1516 that gave every later one its name, with five synagogues hidden in the upper floors and the tallest houses in the city.
New York, United StatesThe Eldridge Street Synagogueקְהַל עֲדַת יְשׁוּרוּןThe first great synagogue built in America by immigrants from Eastern Europe, shut for half a century and open again with a new east window.
North Africa and the Levant
Jewish quarters inside Muslim cities, some of them a thousand years old, most of them emptied within one generation and now kept by a handful of families and their neighbours.
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