“Every New Synagogue Is Both a Religious and a Security Fortress”: Synagogues in Israeli Urban Internal Frontiers as Symbols of Sovereignty

Abstract This article focuses on synagogues in the urban internal frontier in Israel following the Nakba/1948 war. After the war, several initiations were held to demonstrate sovereignty in these urban spheres. Among these initiatives were the establishment of new synagogues by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Two significant features were highlighted in these synagogues—their architectural design and their location. Synagogues were built in monumental dimensions and located in locations where they would overshadow other religious buildings and extract Israeli surveillance over Palestinian presence and memory. The synagogues, as the communities that gathered around them, were harnessed into the Zionist colonial policy and served as national-sovereign agents. This phenomenon is demonstrated through spatial historical analysis of several urban frontiers, thus pointing out the implications of this shift in various contexts. These examples demonstrate the shift in the synagogue’s role within Jewish society and theology—from places of worship and longevity to the destroyed Temple to symbols of Jewish sovereignty. Additionally, these initiations shed light on the ambivalence of Religious-Zionist agents toward Mizrahi Jews, an ambivalence that shifted from viewing them as frontier communities to negating their religiosity as one that cannot be regarded as a proper Israeli religiosity.