In the U.S., synagogues face east toward Jerusalem. What direction do synagogues in Australia face?
Uh, the synogoge where I went to as a kid faced west (or the audience faced that way). It wa actually slightly southwest, so if you mean the ark, that was facing slightly northeast, toward Sweden.
They do?
Perhaps you’re thinking of the ark in some Orthodox synagogues, which is often positioned so that those observing it face towards Jerusalem. In that case, those east of Israel point west. But AFAIK most reform and conservative congregations don’t bother with that detail, and there’s certainly no requirement on the orientation of the structure as a whole,.
Actually, if you are following a great circle route to Jerusalem, you start out traveling approximately northeast in the eastern United States, and in a more northerly direction from points further west. Here’s a great circle route calculator which will give you your starting heading:
Of course, whether a great circle route is the appropriate calculation is open to interpretation of what “towards Jerusalem” means. A majority of Muslims have accepted the great circle calculation for determining the direction of Mecca, for instance, but there is a minority which uses other criteria, resulting in different compass directions in parts of the globe distant from the Middle East. I believe there is a convention that the ark in a synagogue is supposed to be against the wall facing Jerusalem, but I don’t know what the official rule for calculating the direction is.
Anyway, a great circle route from Sydney to Jerusalem is approximately west-northwest.
This is all a whoosh. There are no synagogues in Australia.
I doubt that was a factor. The synogogue was built at so the front was parallel to the street, and the ark is also parallel to the street (which was laid out before the synogogue was founded). It’d be a hell of a coincidence if the street happened to be at right angles to the great circle route to Jerusalem.
Speaking of whooshes, when you flush a toilet in a synagogue in Australia, in which direction does the water flow??
I’ve done a tour of the main synagogue in Sydney, during which we were told that the Ark was built to face Jerusalem. This is confirmed at the website of the Great Synagogue:
Most Orthodox and Conservative synagogues try to orient the ark so that the congregation is facing Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, they are oriented towards the Temple site (the Western Wall.) The orientation is supposed to be straight-line (that is, great circle) orientation, so a synagogue in Turkey would have the congregation facing south-ish. However, this is custom rather than requirement; if the geography of the street didn’t allow for it, they’d not bother. I belong to a right-wing Conservative synagogue that has a small east-oriented chapel, but the main sanctuary is south-oriented. ::: shrug :::
Moslems have a similar orientation when praying – that is, towards Mecca.
Yes, but that is quite mandatory. Supposedly, a lot of early work with maps was done to make sure prayers were said properly.
I assume the problem you refer to is: If synagogues typically face Jerusalem (i.e, they follow the great circle route towards Jerusalem), which direction do synagogues face at the antipodal point of Jerusalem?
This question is easy to answer, since there are no synagogues at the antipodal point of Jerusalem. Wiki gives us this map with two overlapping world maps to give you the antipodal point of any point on the continents. Looking at it, I’d say the antipodes of Jerusalem are deep in the South Pacific.
The same answer goes for mosques - the antipodal point of Mecca is also in the Pacific Ocean.
As it turns out, it’s only about 130 km from Muraroa atoll, one of France’s main nuclear test sites. I’m sure that there’s some significance there somewhere, but I’m not sure what.
So anyway, if we did try to pray on the opposite side of the earth from Meccah, we would have to stay for less then 20 minutes.
And we could only do it once.
ahh…but in what year?
1379