Ezrat Ahim Baladi Synagogue

The story

The Ezrat Ahim Baladi synagogue is the second of the two synagogues in Beersheba listed in the register of the Religious Council in the Yemenite rite, alongside the Shabazi synagogue about two hundred and fifty meters from here. The address in the register is 9 Ha-Shomer Street. The community is marked by the second word in its name: Yemenite Jewry is divided between two prayer rites, the Baladi and the Shami — the Baladi is the local rite, the one that was in Yemen before printed books with the Sephardi custom reached it, and the Shami is the rite that drew closer to them. A synagogue that writes “Baladi” on its sign is not stating only from which country the worshippers came, but on which side of an internal dispute hundreds of years old they stand. The two Yemenite synagogues of the city, the one named after the poet Shabazi and the other after the rite, together tell this thing: one community that brought with it both its poetry and its division, and kept both of them within walking distance of each other. The register adds the name of the gabbai, Hillel Avner, and beyond that gives nothing about the history of the house.

• Communities
• Beersheba