Churches and Synagogues in San Antonio Part One

There are some spectacular churches and synagogues in San Antonio and we fortunately got to take the sacred sites tour while at the SBL last month.  This post will be about the largest of the synagogues— Temple Beth-el…

This is in fact a huge synagogue which indicates a very large Jewish community in San Antonio.  It was quite difficult to get pictures of the outside of the synagogue so I had to settle for a stock image, while concentrating on the inside….

This is the huge main sanctuary, complete with Aeolian organ in the back. Below we see the front of the sanctuary, complete the holy place for the Torah behind gold doors

The rounded dome makes the acoustics in here incredible. Sitting near the back, we could hear our guide without her using any amplification.

Notice the roundells in the roof….

Yes there are stained glass windows, but without human images.  Instead we have beautiful quotations from Scripture….

These windows are so old, that they appear to have King James like English in their quotations.