Random picture thread for Friday

A stop on Route 66

@johnny9434 said:

sunset Maui

CAIRO'S BEN EZRA SYNAGOGUE AS FEATURED IN THIS MONTH'S "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORT:"

THE ENTRANCE TO THE BEN EZRA SYNAGOGUE AS PHOTOGRAPHED LAST FALL:
(Interior photos were restricted}

SEQUEL

DISCOVERING EGYPT’S OLDEST JEWISH SYNAGOGUE AMONG CAIRO'S COPTIC CHRISTIAN CHURCHES

Our tour itinerary in Egypt included multiple Islamic Mosques and Coptic Christian Churches, but no mention of a Jewish synagogue. It was only by chance that we found ourselves visiting the oldest Jewish synagogue in Egypt, the Ben Ezra Synagogue in the Coptic Quarters of Old Cairo, historically known as the Egyptian city of Fustat. I assume our tour guide added this visit because our tour group included Jewish members and she decided it was only fair to reward them for having spent so much time visiting Mosques and Churches of other Faiths.

Learning about the synagogue’s place in both Jewish and Egyptian history has been most educational. The current issue of “National Geographic History” includes an article titled, “The Hidden Archive of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue.”
The feature describes hundreds of thousands of documents that had been preserved in the synagogue’s geniza, an attic storeroom accessible only by climbing a ladder into an entry close to the ceiling.

Upon our visit I peered up to that location without appreciating the significance of the documents and manuscripts that had hidden behind it for many centuries. Some are a thousand years old and provide insight into the Jewish community in Cairo that once numbered over 80,000 and in recent years has dwindled to a dozen. A majority of them are now at Cambridge University where they are being studied. Among them are writings from the second century BC from Ecclesiasticus (Book of Sirach) written in the original Hebrew. Only translations had previously been available.

Tradition has it that the synagogue is located on the site of where the Pharaoh’s daughter found the baby Moses. There is also a well in a nearby courtyard that is claimed to have been the source of bathing water for the toddler Christ Child when he was being hidden in a nearby cave on his sojourn to Egypt to escape from King Herod.

Ben Ezra, after whom the synagogue is named, was a Spanish Jewish scholar who, among other achievements, introduced Islamic mathematics with its decimal system to Europe in the 12th Century AD.

Photos:

Exiting the Ben Ezra Jewish Synagogue in Cairo:

Today's Old Cairo, where the synagogue is located, was historically the separate city of Fustat:

The Ben Ezra Jewish Synagogue is located in Close Proximity to Coptic Christian Churches that were located where tradition has it that the toddler Christ Child was hidden in a nearby cavern:

The Holy Family Fleeing to Egypt as depicted on a Coptic Church's Mural near the Ben Ezra Synagogue:

The entrance to the cavern situated below the Coptic Cavern Church:

Tradition also has it that water from a well in a courtyard near the Ben Ezra Synagogue was used to bathe the Christ Child:

Inside the Hanging Coptic Church in Old Cairo hangs an icon painting of Mary with the Christ Child in Egypt that is commonly known as Egypt's Mona Lisa: