The ornate Moorish Revival

Moorish Revival

Moorish Revival or Neo-Moorish is one of the exotic revival architectural styles that were adopted by architects of Europe and the Americas in the wake of the Romanticist fascination with all things oriental...

 Leipzig synagogue was built in 1855 by German Jewish architect Otto Simonson who had studied under Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. Semper fled first to Zürich and later...

, architect of the Semper Synagogue

Semper Synagogue

Semper Synagogue, also known as the Dresden Synagogue, was built in 1838-40 for the Jewish community of Dresden by Gottfried Semper. It was an early example of the Moorish Revival style of synagogue architecture. The Semper was the first synagogue to feature the richly ornamented interior that...

 in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

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The synagogue was commissioned by the small Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 Jewish community and by Jewish merchants from throughout Europe who gathered for the annual Leipzig Trade Fair

Leipzig Trade Fair

The Leipzig Trade Fair was a major fair for trade across Central Europe for nearly a millennium. After the Second World War, its location happened to lie within the borders of East Germany, whereupon it became one of the most important trade fairs of Comecon and was traditionally a meeting place...

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The interior featured horseshoe arches, an Aron Kodesh in the style of a mihrab

Mihrab

A mihrab is semicircular niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla; that is, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca and hence the direction that Muslims should face when praying...

 and a pulpit in the style of a mimbar. Because so many businessmen gathered in Leipzig for the fairs, the synagogue is thought to have influenced the decision to build Moorish revival synagogues in other cities.

The synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

 by the Nazi regime.