Spanish Synagogue

Look at the building in front of you. Notice anything Spanish about the architecture? Not really. Yet this is the Spanish Synagogue, built in 1868 in Moorish style. The name comes from an earlier chapter. When Isabella of Castile expelled Jews from Spain in 1492, one group fled here and were given the oldest synagogue in the city, a 12th century prayer house called the Old School. They renamed it the Spanish Synagogue. For centuries it stood on this exact spot. By the 1860s that ancient building was crumbling. The community demolished it and hired architects Vojtěch Ignác Ullmann and Josef Niklas to build something new. They chose Moorish Revival style, inspired by the Alhambra in Granada, as a tribute to the Sephardic refugees who once worshipped here. The irony? Those Spanish Jews never saw this version. It went up 375 years after they arrived. Here is something few visitors know. František Škroup, who composed the Czech national anthem, worked as organist at the old building from 1836 to 1845. He played on the very ground beneath your feet. The gilded interior with its arabesque patterns took over a decade to complete, finished in 1893. Designers Antonín Baum and Bedřich Münzberger covered every surface with intricate Oriental motifs, creating what many call the most beautiful synagogue in Europe.