The next task was to set up a yeshiva. As word spread, students journeyed to Jerusalem to be near the revered scholar, teacher and leader. Nachmanides succeeded in laying a foundation of Jewish renewal, and after one year he returned to Acco to lead the congregation there.
After Nachmanides’s death in 1270, the Ramban Synagogue was moved inside the Old City walls. It was built below ground level, because Muslim law prohibited any Jewish place of worship to be taller than its Muslim counterparts.
Over time, the Jewish community of Jerusalem increased until it once again became the center of Jewish life in Israel. Sephardim and Ashkenazim prayed and studied together in the Ramban Synagogue for the next 300 years. Then in 1589, due to the abject poverty in the Jewish community, the building was confiscated. By then, however, the Jewish community was established. It would continue and increase for centuries … until 1948.
During the early stages of Israel’s War of Independence, Jewish forces fought a desperate battle to hold on to the Old City. Ultimately they surrendered to the Jordanians, who evicted all the Jewish residents. Dozens of synagogues were destroyed and the remnants of hundreds of years of Jewish existence in Jerusalem were wiped out. The Ramban Synagogue itself was turned into a dumpsite.
Israeli independence was achieved, but Jerusalem’s ancient streets again lay empty, as during the dark days of the Crusades.
It was 19 years later, in June 1967, that Jerusalem was reunited. Many of the ancient synagogues were rebuilt, and the Jewish community of the Old City was restored.
In the center of today’s thriving Jewish Quarter stands the Ramban Synagogue. The history and holiness can be felt in its every brick and archway. It is a place bustling with prayer and Torah learning, its presence a living testimony to the efforts of Nachmanides some 700 years ago.
