Itzkovitch Synagogue, Orthodox Jewish synagogue in central Bnei Brak, Israel.
Itzkovitch Synagogue is a four-storey building on HaRav Shach Street at the corner of Rabbi Akiva Street in Bnei Brak. It contains 14 prayer halls: six smaller rooms on the entrance level and seven ornate halls on the first floor, inaugurated in 2015. A large prayer hall and Torah study rooms occupy the second floor, and a women's section opens on Shabbat on the third. The grey, unfinished facade has never been completed.
The synagogue began when Zvi Itzkovitch set aside a room in his house for prayers to avoid foot traffic on Shabbat. This private space later expanded into the larger facility that serves multiple communities today.
The prayer quorum changes leader by leader: the prayer rite follows the identity of whoever leads, so Ashkenazi, Sephardi, national-religious and secular worshippers each hear their own custom. To honour the founder's wish, the large second-floor hall keeps the Ashkenazi rite exclusively. Beggars and charity collectors gather around the entrance and rely on the generosity of those arriving.
The small halls on the ground floor host ad-hoc minyanim almost around the clock, and each room has a coin-operated meter that switches on the air conditioning for a short time for a symbolic sum used for upkeep. The large hall on the second floor keeps fixed times and the Ashkenazi rite, while the women's section on the third floor opens only on Shabbat.
The building's front facade was never finished; bare grey walls without cladding or paint still face the street. The official name, Tiferet Zvi, is barely known to the public, who call it simply Itzkovitch after the founder. On the ground floor, each small hall has a coin-operated timer that switches on the air conditioning for the length of a service.
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