Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, Sephardic synagogue in Seward Park, Seattle, United States.
Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation is an Orthodox synagogue in Seattle's Seward Park neighborhood that follows the Sephardic tradition. It is one of two Sephardic congregations in the city, alongside Congregation Ezra Bessaroth. The congregation's name means visiting or comforting the sick, a mitzvah, and its first official name was Spanish Hebrew Society and Congregation Bikur Holim.
Solomon Calvo and Jacob Policar, the first Sephardic Jews in Seattle, arrived from Marmara in 1902. In 1913 the congregation raised $800 to buy the former Bikur Cholim synagogue at 13th and Washington, and in 1924 Rabbi Abraham Maimon, formerly of Tekirdağ, became its rabbi.
The congregation preserves traditional Sephardic customs through prayer services in Hebrew and Ladino, honoring the heritage of Turkish and Mediterranean Jewish communities. Visitors can experience these living traditions through the prayers and gatherings held throughout the year.
The synagogue stands in Seward Park, in the south of Seattle, where the city's Sephardic community settled; the congregation's own website is the place to confirm service times before a visit. Men should expect to wear a kippah, and the building is an active Orthodox house of worship rather than a museum.
The congregation's name comes from Bikur Holim, meaning visiting or comforting the sick. Its own website traces the name to an identically named congregation in Tekirdağ, Turkey, while Roberta Noel Britt links it to the former Ashkenazic Bikur Cholim synagogue bought in 1913. For a time in the 1930s, after merging with another congregation, it was called Bikur Holim Ahavath Ahim.
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