general view of the prayer room
from the south-west
The oldest synagogues surviving today in the Comtat are the ones to be seen at Carpentras and Cavaillon. Most of their architecture and their furnishings date from the second half of the eighteenth century. At this time certain Jewish traders began to amass considerable fortunes, allowing for the reconstruction of the older places of worship. A few traces of these earlier synagogues are to be seen, re-used in the present-day ones.
When these synagogues were rebuilt, efforts were made to increase their capacity in order to accommodate the rapidly growing population inside the ghetto. Lacking ground space, the solution found was to multiply the number of galleries. There was nothing new in this vertical development; from the fifteenth century on, the region’s synagogues had two prayer rooms, one above the other, the lower level being reserved for women, with the men above. The only communication between them was via a small window, latticed with iron and open in front of the tabernacle, allowing the women to see the sacred books.