Synagogue of Libyan Immigrants

This guide to the Synagogue of Libyan Immigrants in Jaffa opens in 1948, when a Franciscan priest hands a group of newly arrived Libyan Jewish immigrants a set of old keys and tells them the building was once a synagogue. From there it reaches back to the 1740s, when the structure served as a travelers' khan bought by a Jewish notable named Rabbi Yaakov ben David Zonana, offering pilgrims a ritual bath and a bed on the road to Jerusalem. A famous rabbi known as the Chida stopped here in 1757 and wrote of the silence and tranquility he found within these walls.