Synagogue, Religious landmark in Lengnau, Switzerland

The Lengnau Synagogue is a rectangular building with a shallow pitched roof, designed by Ferdinand Stadler in the Rundbogenstil of Neo-Romanesque architecture. Its entrance front has a projecting central bay with the main portal flanked by two women's entrances, a round-arched window with a clock added later, and a stone law tablet on the gable. The southeast side has a rectangular apse with an eight-part tracery rose window.

Jews settled in Lengnau from 1622, and until the mid-19th century Lengnau and Endingen were the only Swiss villages where they could reside permanently. A first synagogue, the earliest modern Jewish place of worship in Switzerland, was built in 1750 and soon proved too small. Ferdinand Stadler designed its replacement, consecrated on 6 August 1847; swampy ground raised the cost from 24,000 to 40,000 francs.

The building serves as a physical record of how Jewish communities worshipped in Switzerland during times of strict restrictions. Visitors can see how the structure itself reflects the legal requirements and social conditions that shaped religious life here.

Visitors can see the building through guided tours that must be arranged in advance with the local tourism office. It is helpful to check ahead since access times are limited.

The two women's entrances flank the main portal, while the women's gallery runs around three sides of the nave on slender wooden columns. The gallery is where a large collection of mappot, the Lengnau mappot, was found in the 1960s; these Torah binders are now kept at the Jewish Museum of Switzerland in Basel.